What Goes Around
by Nightwind
Summary: Swoop grows up. Way up. Unfortunately, there are growing pains involved. Meanwhile, for Starscream, no good deed goes unpunished. G1-based AU.
1. Notes!

Hoo boy. I really had to think hard about sharing this one! Why? Because it's really weird. But in the end…Eh, I figure I may as well let y'all crucify me for my crackiness. Or ignore me. Or whatever. But for the final two chapters that I'm still poking at, I've finished writing this (although there are at least three other stories that have bloomed in my head and that I _could_ write, should I choose to make this a continuity), so updates should be quick.

But first! Notes! Because there are _always_ notes…

1. This is a G1-cartoon-based alternate universe story. It's set in 2009 but ignores the '86 movie business. Apologies to those who like that "business," but frankly my policy has always been, "Movie? What movie?"

2. Crackalicious pair-but-not-really-pair on tap: Starscream and Swoop. Yeah, baby. They have been haunting me off and on in various ways since about…oh…1985. A-yup, I am _that_ whacked, thank you. But, recently, a complete reimagining of Cybertronian biology, history, culture, and social structure and all that kind of stuff up and whacked me over the head. (Warning: It ain't canon in any way, shape, or form. Run away now.) And then my crack pair and said reimagining started to gel in my head such that the reimagining justified, for me at least, the crack and made it un-cracky. Or at least not quite as cracky as it had been. The result is this story.

3. It occurs to me, given some of the things that happen in this story, that I should probably relay how I see the Dinobots, physically, AU or not. I've dropped easily-overlooked hints about the issue in various Dinobot stories that I've written over the years, but I've never explicitly spelled it all out, mostly because it usually doesn't matter. But for this story it sort of does matter on occasion.

So, you need to know that my mind's-eye picture of the Dinobots is actually quite different, in terms of scale, than the way they're drawn on the 'toon and in the comic books and such. It's based more on the relative sizes of the dinosaur/pterosaur species that each Dinobot mimics. (Remember, kids: Pterosaurs are not dinosaurs!) As such, in my mind, Sludge is the largest of the Dinobots, as your average _Apatosaurus _(née _Brontosaurus_) was, pardon the technical jargon, freakin' ginormous. Next down in size would be Grimlock and Slag, who'd be roughly the same size as each other and about three-quarters(ish) the size of Sludge. Snarl would be a bit smaller than those two but not by much; he'd be shoulder height to them or thereabouts. But Swoop? Ahhhh, Swoop…

***paleontology geek alert!* *pterosaur fan alert!***

_P. longiceps _isthe type species of genus _Pteranodon_ andis the smaller of the two known species of said genus. It had a head crest that more or less matches Swoop's, and it had around a 25-foot wingspan. (The other species was larger, but its head didn't look anything like Swoop's, so I'm goin' with _P. longiceps_ here.) Like modern birds, pterosaurs in general had quite small bodies in comparison to their wingspans, and they were hollow-boned and very light for their size, which was necessary for creatures that, like modern albatrosses, likely spent much of their time on the wing. In the case of _P. longiceps_ specifically: While it had a 25-foot wingspan, its body was only about 6 feet long and half of that was its head/jaws. It probably only weighed about 40 pounds or so. For comparison: The size of an F-15E, i.e. Starscream? Yeah, wingspan about 43 feet, length about 65 feet, and weight about 15 tons.

***end geek/fan alert***

So! Taking all of this into account, giving the DinoDads some hefty creative license to make Swoop larger and bulkier than he "should" be in order to accommodate things like missile launchers/ordnance and engines and such, _and_ figuring in the Transformers' Magical Mystical Mass-Shifting Powers™ that tends to make them smaller (or much larger) than they "should" be in their robot forms…Well, in my mind, Swoop is noticeably smaller than the "standard" car Autobots like the Datsuns but bigger than the minibots. In my mind, Swoop's more or less two-thirds the size of Grimlock and about three-quarters the size of Starscream. Or thereabouts.

Yes, yes, I _know_: Canonically, the Dinobots weren't built on a scale to match the species they mimicked, and the idea was that they were _all_ huge and therefore more intimidating, and blah blah…but in my own little world, they're "to scale" because it soothes my (very) geeky soul. I was a dinosaur geek long before the Dinobots existed, after all. So, if any relative size descriptions in this story make you go "Buh?" that would be why.

Also, on a different note but still concerning the Dinobots: Please note that the Dinobots are 24 years old in this story. As such, they've matured since the second season of the 'toon, the last common canon reference for this story, when they were, basically, babies. For instance, in this story they have mature speech patterns. Well, for the most part, anyway. A _certain one_ is _still_ stubborn about that issue sometimes. *glares at Slag, who gives a fierce raspberry in return* And under stress they'll all occasionally "revert." But generally, they talk like "normal people." Most of them have jobs/functions, too, aside from ass-kicking.

4. My timescale that I like to use when going full-on AU like this is far more compact than is canon, mostly because I find it difficult to wrap my senile mind around the concept of individuals living for _one_ million years, much less _multiple_ millions of years. So, when I go AU, I remove a few orders of magnitude: The Transformers crashed on Earth 4,000 years ago, not four million years ago. The rest of the time scale is similarly compressed. (i.e. Optimus Prime is about 9,000 years old, not nine million.) This often seeps into my sentences here and there, where you'll see "thousands" instead of the "millions" you might expect.

5. This story isn't slash! No, really! Pinky-swear! You'll see why just about immediately. It also isn't a romance, either, which is decidedly strange coming from yours truly, a queen of mush. The "naughty" parts are plug and play, and it's actually the first time I've really messed around with that concept at all, since I usually stick to romance-y lovey-dovey spark-based "OMG, ILU 4EVR!" kind of stuff…which doesn't work at all for my purposes in this story. It's forcing me to think differently, which I guess is a good thing. Anyway, there are no analogues of human naughty bits to be found here, so it's not sticky and therefore not, in my mind, smutty…which raises the question of whether or not this really deserves an M rating. But that's what I gave it, to be safe. There is a theme in it that I guess could be considered mature, besides the "naughty" stuff, so… *shrugs*

6. This story has no relationship whatsoever to any other story/continuity I've ever written. It _does_ refer to some specific stuff I've written in my various Dinobot stories – Swoop's a medic, Sludge is an artist, Swoop once nearly died for no apparent reason whatsoever, etc. – but it is not meant to take place in that same "universe," nor is it at all required that you read those stories, as the references are for the most part mere throw-aways. If you want a deeper understanding of "my" Dinobots, go read those stories, but it isn't really necessary in order to understand this one. In any case, this is a parallel universe to the one I normally write in; some things are the same but other things are very, _very_ different, as you'll see. I should also note that Skyfire, with whom I usually pair Starscream with fanatical OTP fervor, doesn't exist in this AU. Because I say so. ;)

Annnnnnnnd…I think that's about it. If I think of anything else, I'll note it before the affected individual chapters. If you choose to give this thing a shot…Well, enjoy! Don't say that I didn't warn you about the weirdness, though…


	2. Prologue

Excerpted from a brief written by Autobot Skids, part of an informational packet presented to the members of the U.S. Diplomatic Corps in 1985, in the interest of fostering further interspecies understanding:

…_The biology of much of life on Earth is really quite simple: Two genders. One of each gender couples together, some genetic material is exchanged, and in due time new members of the species are born. Those new individuals then proceed through successive larval stages until they are deemed mature, at which point they repeat the cycle. Human society is also simple yet, to us, chaotic and strangely unstructured. So, in both respects, we are quite different from humans. _

_Humans might be interested to know that we have no less than four genders. Or rather, we have three genders and one non-gender. It is thought that this is a byproduct of the rather convoluted way that our species came into existence, which is beyond the scope of discussion here. Whatever the case, approximately three-quarters of the population of Cybertron is gender-neutral, neither male nor female in any sense that a human would perceive. The other quarter of the population is gendered, either male or female. However, within the gendered portion of the population, there is a distinct skew: males outnumber females by almost twenty to one. That said, if two oppositely-gendered individuals happen to couple, they may produce a "child," which will mature in a manner somewhat analogous to the way in which a human child matures. The difference, for us, is that an offspring produced in this manner will never attain sentience by itself. It will forever remain simple and fairly mindless, functioning on only the most basic and instinctive level until it is provided with a spark; our sparks, as opposed to our bodies, are who we truly are and they are, in extreme cases, separable from our bodies. _

_New sparks can only come from, for lack of a better word that exists in your language, a queen. Our fourth gender, she is a female who differs from her fellow females only in that her spark has the inborn capability, given proper spark energy input from a male at the proper cyclical times in her life – a process regulated by a complex electrochemical drive initiated in both participants – to repeatedly divide into distinct new sparks without damage to her own. Each of the new sparks she produces has its own unique traits unrelated to her own and, once merged with a body, will provide the "newborn" Transformer with his or her own unique base personality that will grow and develop as time goes on. _

_The new sparks – usually about a dozen are produced at once – are harvested from the queen's body and stored in electrochemical stasis for future use. They are our future generations in waiting, usually merged with bodies that are simply constructed, although there is the much rarer case, described above, of offspring produced the "old-fashioned way," as you humans might say. So there are a few of us who exist who actually have three "parents," the two who contributed their body and the queen who contributed their spark. Most of us, however, have only an individual or individuals who built our body and the queen who produced our spark._

_All of that said, it should come as no surprise that our societal organization is not built around gender or around any sort of familial structure. Rather, it is built around a caste structure. Traditionally, one's caste membership is a vastly more important factor than one's "parentage" or gender or anything else in determining one's place and status in our society. One's caste, like one's gender or lack thereof, is an inherent property of one's spark, so it is part of an individual from the moment of his or her "birth." There are – or, I should say, were – three castes._

_In order of increasing size, the first is the royal caste, to which only queens and any offspring whom they have bred in both body and spark belong. Like her fellow females, a queen has the ability to produce offspring. However, in her case alone, she can produce "complete" offspring, in that they are born with an already-integrated spark. The queen's offspring are also, without exception, gendered. When the queen reaches the end of her life, one of her mature daughters undergoes a very demanding – physically as well as psychologically – transformational process in order to arise as the new queen. Traditionally, the queen is the ruler of our planet, in deference to the fact that it is she who insures the continuance of our species. In actual matter of fact, however, she is a symbol and a figurehead; a democratically-elected council, with a majority vote, can override any of her decisions. They, therefore, have far more political power than does the queen. The queen is – or, rather, _was_ – an extremely powerful, central figure in our cultural subconscious, however, and that tended to override politics._

_I say "was" because our queen, almost all of the members of her "family," and most of the council were deposed and killed by Megatron, after which he imposed planet-wide martial law under his sole authority. This was the incident which ultimately, though not immediately, precipitated the Great War that has been waged for thousands of years now on Cybertron and that, with the recent re-emergence of the Decepticons, has now spread here to Earth. Megatron systematically hunted down in particular the female royals in order to ensure his supremacy in the new societal order that he created, to make certain that no new queen would arise to challenge the authority that he gave himself. So the royal caste is now, for the most part, extinct. Only two royals survived Megatron's massacre. Both still survive, but both are male. As a result, there is genuine concern about the future survival of our species. _

_The second caste is the warrior caste. Their sole job, traditionally, is the defense of the royal caste and of Cybertron in general, at the cost of their own lives if necessary. Many of the warriors now identify themselves as Decepticons, as Megatron's revolt was originally a warrior caste uprising precipitated by the fact that the queen was not exactly benevolent to the warriors. She had distinct imperialistic tendencies and tended to see the warriors as mere cannon fodder to be disposed of as she saw fit, to further her aims and ambitions. The warriors grew deeply resentful of this, and rightfully so. However, they also have an inborn, instinctive dedication to protecting the royal caste at all costs, so it is only those warriors who were able to suppress that part of their nature who ended up supporting Megatron in both the short and the long term. _

_Many of the warrior caste ultimately chose not to support Megatron but also chose not to actively oppose him, either, perhaps reasoning that without a royal line to protect, their services were no longer required in any capacity. A number of warriors eventually chose to support the Autobot cause, once it was consolidated under Optimus Prime, fighting against their castemates and, in some cases, their friends. Their input and the training they have offered have obviously been invaluable to our cause._

_The final and by far largest caste is the civil caste. Their job is to provide everything that our society requires aside from military offense/defense. Amongst the civil caste, there are guilds, which are essentially sub-castes. They include our clergy, our artists, our scientists, our administrators and civil servants, our engineers, architects, and builders, our merchants, and many other distinct groups, down to simple manual laborers. As you might expect, the majority of the Autobots are members of this caste. We count amongst our organization representatives from all of the civil guilds as well as a fair number of warriors and one of the surviving royals. _

_However, the war has and continues to decimate not only our home planet but also, now that we lack a queen, our population. Three of the four stasis chambers where sparks had been stored on Cybertron have been completely destroyed over the course of the war to date, the sparks that had been housed within them extinguished. The fourth chamber is functional but heavily damaged. Tens of thousands of lives, enough to perpetuate our species for perhaps millions of years, were lost before they had had a chance to live; now, they cannot be replaced. _

_When we Autobots left Cybertron, the remaining chamber had housed only seventy-seven viable sparks. At the time, we knew that it was possible that we would never be able to return to or have future contact with Cybertron, so we took forty of those sparks with us when we left our home, all that our ship could safely support long-term in stasis. In the event that we ended up settling on another world, it was thought that this would give those sparks, at least, a chance to survive and live their lives. It is partly for this reason that our ship, which has now become our headquarters, has come be known as the Ark, so christened by human associates of ours, a reference to an ancient religious text. Having now read the text in question, I agree that the reference is quite apt. _

_Thirty-two of the sparks we took with us survived our unexpected crash on Earth and the subsequent period of hibernation, but none of them survived completely intact and undamaged. Still, our chief engineer and our chief medic were recently able to utilize five of those damaged sparks as a "base" in order to create the newest members of our species: The Dinobots. We have hope that the procedures used to bring them to life can be revised and improved so that the other twenty-seven damaged sparks currently remaining in protective stasis, can be salvaged as well. Because as it is, in the wake of the ruin of our society and given our lack of a queen with no possibility of replacing her, most of us are simply inclined to accept that our species is doomed…_


	3. 1: Imperative

_**Note:** This chapter was updated 1/5/10, mostly as part of the effort to fix this story's overall narrative voice to make it consistently third-person. But in this chapter's case the ending is a little different as well. But not in any way that really matters, plot-wise. I just liked it better._

* * *

**24 years later…  
**

_**1: Imperative**_

Swoop was precariously perched on the lip of a mist-shrouded gorge that was a thousand meters deep, carved over long eons by the river that wended its way through the bottom of it. He…_She_ was staring single-mindedly into the gorge's depths. Her knees were drawn tightly into her chest, and her arms were wrapped tightly around her bent legs, hands clasped over her shins and fingers determinedly interlaced, as if she was struggling to keep herself from flying apart. Despite the sweltering equatorial heat and its dripping humidity, she was shivering, violent tremors wracking her small body in cyclical waves. Occasionally, sounds emerged from her, little sighs and gasps and whimpers and hitches in her breath that had whiffs of pain and deep distress about them.

Starscream almost expected her to fly off at his approach, like a panicked bird flushed from its roost. He was prepared to fly after her if necessary, to pursue her until they both had not enough energy to fly and so would have no real fight left in them; it might have made things easier. But Swoop didn't move. Her senses on full and overly defensive alert, she had stilled and lifted her head the moment that she had detected Starscream's approach, her posture instantly stiff and wary, but other than the involuntary tremors and twitches, that was the only move that she'd made. When Starscream was a mere five meters from her, she turned her head to look at him. Her eyes were wide and feral, glowing an unnaturally bright blue-white against the gathering purples of encroaching twilight. The glowing intensity of her eyes, coupled with the watchful and vaguely threatening expression on her face, gave Starscream pause, and he took a small step backward, all unwillingly.

He had had some ideas of what he'd be facing with Swoop, but even under normal circumstances she was potentially lethal and always unpredictable. Now, she was giving him a wild-eyed look that clearly communicated a serious intention to eat him alive. She was also panting, her body fighting to cool itself. The combination was enough to make something within Starscream lurch as he stared at her. It strongly compelled him to move toward her, but he checked himself, held his ground, and decided that he needed to be in some semblance of control for as long as he could be in control. He watched Swoop warily, willing himself not to move, not even to _twitch_, waiting for her to make the next move. But she didn't move, either. Instead, she spoke, which surprised Starscream; he hadn't expected much in the way of conversation.

"If you know what's good for you, Starscream, you'll turn around and leave," Swoop growled after a long moment spent staring heatedly at the Seeker. Her voice was low and growling, her gaze burning wherever it touched him. "Before I'm forced to do something we'll both regret," she added.

She was far gone. Starscream could tell that this was so simply by the look on her face and the sound of her low, guttural voice. The latter was changing just as much as practically everything else about her was changing, at least internally; she was undergoing a transformation the likes of which Starscream couldn't and didn't want to imagine. On the other hand, it occurred to Starscream that if she still felt a need to warn him against being here, then she was apparently not quite so far gone that she was beyond trying, with typical Dinobot single-minded tenacity, to fight what was happening to her, to fight what she was becoming, even though she had to know that it was a fight that she could only lose. Nor was she beyond fighting the fact that it would, inevitably, be Starscream. But ultimately, she had no choice. Neither did Starscream.

Not for the first time, Starscream marveled at the fact that the Autobots had managed to create her in the first place, without resources from Cybertron. Now he was forced to marvel as well that somehow, in a way that was beyond his ability to comprehend, she was a queen. It made no sense. Queens came from queens. The queen had been dead for thousands of years – He had watched her die – and Swoop had been created a mere twenty-four years ago. It was puzzling, indeed. A Primus-wrought miracle, perhaps.

Starscream was of a scientific bent; he didn't truly believe in deities, his own or anyone else's, and so he didn't believe in divinely-wrought miracles, either. Yet, he couldn't deny Swoop's status. He felt the pull toward her, strong and threatening now, with close proximity, toward overwhelming. He had known, instantly and from thousands of kilometers away, exactly where she was even before he had left Decepticon Headquarters. He knew, deep down on an instinctive level that he hadn't even known that he possessed, that she was exactly what the Autobots claimed that she was. And he knew that, very soon now, they would be…Best not to think on that, at the moment, Starscream decided.

The Decepticons had been "lucky" enough to have captured Swoop, making her their guest for ten days or so. During that time, Starscream had been determined to analyze, replicate, and determine the weaknesses of the extremely light but excessively strong armor that Wheeljack had created specifically for Swoop, which granted her the ability to hover and to glide for extended periods of time, greatly reducing her energy consumption without sacrificing strength, structural integrity, or defensive capability. He had been planning to figure out how Wheeljack had managed this feat even if he had to rip off every last bit of Swoop's armor and then melt it down in order to analyze it down to its constituent elements. This had kept him in very close proximity to Swoop for the better part of a week. And unbeknownst to anyone, including Swoop herself, she had begun the royal transformation even before she had been captured, and during the time that she had spent alone with Starscream, she had imprinted on him.

But then the Decepticons had exchanged Swoop for Soundwave, whom the Autobots had captured during the course of the same battle during which Starscream had managed to shoot down and disable Swoop. Starscream had argued vociferously against the exchange, wanting, so he'd thought, to continue his work; now he realized that his extreme unwillingness to let Swoop go had really been fueled by something else entirely. Still, in the end, Swoop had gone back to the Autobots with her armor more or less intact. Once returned to the Autobots, her "condition" had apparently progressed quickly, and they had eventually figured out what was "wrong" with her.

Hence, Ratchet's call only the day before, informing Starscream that his "services" would be required. He had immediately and scathingly refused, insisting that the Autobot medic was lying for some reason. Ratchet, in response, had given him a pityingly amused look and had sardonically predicted that he'd be changing his tune in about ten hours.

And Ratchet had _almost_ been right, Starscream ruefully reflected. In the end, it had only taken a little less than seven hours before he was basically climbing the walls, filled with desperate excess energy and barely refraining from howling to be let out of Decepticon Headquarters so that he could go find Swoop. Hence, he now found himself somewhere in the wilds of the Bolivian rain forest, the place that she had chosen for this rendezvous. The hot, dripping environment seemed appropriate for the occasion, and it was neutral ground. It was very remote, completely unpopulated, and near neither of their headquarters. And as Starscream watched another wave of powerful tremors wrack Swoop's small frame, he found himself confirming the decision he'd made as he'd journeyed from Decepticon Headquarters to Bolivia.

Megatron had ordered him to terminate Swoop. It was an understandable order, really; the revelation of her status had made her a powerful and immediate threat to him. His position had been more or less secure for a very long time now, rebellious Autobots notwithstanding, but he knew that a perhaps significant number of those currently loyal to him would desert him, perhaps even turn on him, in favor of a new queen should one somehow arise. This was particularly so now, now that many Decepticons – himself included, of course – were growing increasingly disgruntled with Megatron as the conflict with the Autobots dragged on with no end in sight, as Megatron's myriad promises made thousands of years ago somehow never managed to materialize, and as he rather ironically became more and more like the hated queen that he had deposed. So now, Megatron wanted Swoop gone, and he wanted her gone yesterday, before it could become widely known what, exactly, she was. And Starscream understood why. Looking at things from Megatron's point of view, his orders made perfect sense.

But Starscream had decided that Swoop wasn't going to die. He had realized that it wasn't in his own best interests to kill her at all, that it was only in Megatron's best interests to do so. Over the years, and particularly so of late, Starscream had developed a general habit of only doing what was in Megatron's best interests if doing so also benefited himself in some way. In this case, Starscream has simply realized that Swoop's continued survival was potentially far more to his advantage than was her death. If her destiny was to challenge and perhaps be the instrument of Megatron's eventual downfall, then her destiny was in alignment with his own goals. If her destiny was to avenge her predecessor's assassination in some grand, karmic kind of way, then forging a link to her, giving her a reason to refrain from destroying _him_ as well when the time came, was not a bad idea at all. And if all of that wasn't her destiny at all…There was no strong downside that Starscream could see to creating such a link and allowing her to live, anyway. At the very least, when her status was undeniably revealed to everyone, it would cause even more unrest amongst the Decepticons, which would only be to his ultimate advantage.

Naturally, when Megatron inevitably found out that Swoop was still alive, when he found out that Starscream had failed to carry out his assigned mission, there would be repercussions. Personal ones. Very unpleasant ones. But even those seemed to Starscream to pale in comparison to the possible future benefits. So Swoop would live.

Starscream ended the uneasy stalemate that had quickly developed between Swoop and himself by decisively closing the distance between them and boldly sitting down next to her, his legs hanging over the rim of the gorge. He leaned far forward, contemplating the wide, placid, green-brown stretch of the river at the bottom for a beat. Dizzying heights, of course, did not bother him, just as they did not bother Swoop. For Starscream, great heights were instead comforting, and he wondered if the same might be true for Swoop and if that was why she had chosen this particular spot for this event.

Swoop gave Starscream a heated, askance look as he sat down next to her, even though he was careful not to touch her…yet. But he was certainly close enough to feel the excess heat that was radiating from her body; it made him shiver. The rate of her panting sped up as she gazed at Starscream, somewhat more eye-to-eye now that he wasn't standing and therefore looming over her, and as their gazes met, it was suddenly all Starscream could do to refrain from pulling her to him. He tucked his hands firmly under his thighs to help stave off the impulse, even though he knew that it was only delaying the inevitable.

"That was…" Swoop was meanwhile informing Starscream haltingly, between pants, "_really_ not good…for you."

"Fortunately for you, I'm not known for doing what's good for me," Starscream replied with a cavalier shrug. Which was true more than she knew, given his decision to disobey Megatron's orders. By the time they parted, she would not only have begun to fulfill her intended purpose in life, but she would live to tell the tale.

Swoop scowled at Starscream for his flippancy, and the human saying about looks killing flitted through his mind. Her gaze was a mixture of scorching desire and deep revulsion, an odd but somehow enticing combination, and after a moment or two spent staring at each other, the nearness of her was overwhelming. As if in some mutual hypnotic trance, Starscream leaned toward her at the very same time that she leaned toward him.

The first kiss between them was chaste, but it was electric, nevertheless. Starscream was a rather experienced individual, but the contact was like nothing that he had ever experienced. Energy and heightened sensation lanced like liquid fire through his entire body and at breathtaking speed, starting at the very moment of contact. It was like a lightning-induced power surge that merrily fried circuit pathways as it passed through him. Unlike a power surge, the sensation wasn't doing any damage other than to his self-control, but like a lightning bolt, the contact was very short-lived.

Something clicked in Swoop's rational mind that was still somehow managing to cling to control. She realized what was happening between them at about the same moment that she decided that she didn't like it at all, and she abruptly broke the kiss and jerked away from Starscream with a noise of disgust. She scuttled backward, crab style, ending up a dozen meters away from the Seeker.

Starscream watched her retreat, reflecting that, on the plus side, she hadn't taken off and flown. Not that he couldn't catch her if she'd chosen to do that, of course. It entered his mind that a little game of chase might have been stimulating, even. But it would also have wasted time and energy, as the conclusion was foregone. The imprint was such that he'd be able to find her, and vice versa, no matter where she ran. And eventually, Starscream knew that neither of them would want to hide or run from the other at all.

The mere thought prompted a small and anticipatory shudder to work its way through Starscream's body, and suddenly Swoop wasn't the only one who was panting. Instinct had kicked in for Starscream as well, greatly fueled and suddenly jolted into very high gear by the brief physical contact between himself and the Dinobot. Desire suffused his body with quickening heat, thrusting aside little things like opposing factions and long-standing rivalry and even mutual hatred. If anything, those fanned the flames higher and hotter. Starscream had gotten an all-too-brief taste of her, and he found that he wanted more, much more. And he would have it.

Starscream twisted away from the edge of the gorge with a growl that, had he been more in his right mind, he might not have believed had come from himself. And then he crawled on hands and knees toward Swoop. She held her position, having backed herself up against the dripping, moss-covered trunk of an impressively tall tree. She was staring at the Seeker half in wariness and half in challenge as he moved inevitably closer, her chin raised at him defiantly. And then she was suddenly moving, too, shifting fluidly forward to her own hands and knees and then crawling to meet Starscream. Her movements were uncertain, but they possessed a predatory grace and sleekness that Starscream found himself noticing and appreciating. Her expression was still that odd combination of desire, timidity, and hatefulness, but she was moving toward him. Willingly. He reached out to her once she was within arm's reach again, slid his hand around to firmly cup the back of her neck, and then insistently drew her toward him for another kiss.

This one was as stimulating as the previous one had been, and it lasted a lot longer. It wasn't long before Starscream felt as if parts of his insides were melting, and a moment or two after that, he felt Swoop relax under his hand as well, the tension that had held her entire body stiff suddenly draining from her…until he began to encourage her to open her mouth, tracing along her lips with his tongue as he kissed her. She abruptly broke the kiss then, tension slamming back into her full-force. She jerked away from Starscream again, but this time she held her ground. It was an improvement, he decided. She opened her mouth to say something, but Starscream wasn't in the mood for conversation.

"Just…let it happen," he hissed at her impatiently, heading off whatever she had been about to say. "It'll be much easier for both of us that way." And then he leaned into her again.

Swoop met him quite enthusiastically this time, which Starscream hadn't expected at all. He had been thinking that a lot more coaxing and perhaps even some force would be in order. But apparently the last remaining sliver of rational Swoop had decided to stop fighting the situation and him, had decided to squeeze her eyes shut and take a nice little vacation. And this time she didn't hesitate to open her mouth under Starscream's when he silently asked for entrance. He slammed his tongue boldly into the virgin territory of Swoop's mouth, and this, like a key unlocking a door, seemed to ignite something within her that she hadn't even known that she possessed. She found herself growling and pressing aggressively into the kiss, moaning softly and sweetly into the raging, devouring fire of it. Her tongue stroked against Starscream's in an exploratory, uncertain, but deeply sensuous way, and without breaking the kiss, she moved into him, wrapping her arms possessively around him and molding her body as closely as possible to his. They fit surprisingly well together, and Starscream faintly noted that the heat that she was radiating was delicious against him, even though their surroundings were already sweltering.

Taking all of her actions as something of a hint, Starscream bit lightly and experimentally down on Swoop's tongue, just to see how she would react to the gesture. In response, she dug her fingers into his back, and the digging quickly turned into curious, exploratory probing. When Starscream groaned in response to her attentions, she instantly found herself uncertain and stopped what she was doing, pulling her hands away from him as if they'd been burned. But Starscream was having none of that. Reaching behind himself, he grabbed her hovering and suddenly uncertain hands, slamming them down right back where they had been. At the same time, he broke the kiss between them, connected his gaze with her suddenly confused one, and heatedly growled, "Don't you _dare_ stop!"

For a moment, Swoop just stared at him, wide-eyed and startled, before she blinked slowly once, twice, and a wicked little smile of dawning and then growing comprehension spread over her face. Warm little fingers started poking Starscream in all the right places again and then started moving, exploring boldly outwards from where they'd originally landed. One hand went down, the other slid slowly, languidly around to his flank, stroking and tracing angles and contours and armor seams, probing hesitantly at first and then with increasing confidence and aggression as she assiduously watched his reactions to what she was doing to him.

Starscream had just discovered that she was a delightfully quick study, bless her little spark.

"Mmmmm," he murmured appreciatively under her exploratory assault, his head drifting forward and down until his forehead rested heavily on the top of her shoulder. He greedily drank in the sensations that she was wrenching from his body, biting down hard on his own lower lip to stop himself from shrieking when she unwittingly happened upon that one exquisitely sensitive little armor seam in his left flank. Her attentions to it alone soon had him shuddering in her arms, and this she exploited mercilessly, continuing to probe away at him.

"Atta girl," Starscream encouraged her quietly, his voice shaking in a way that should have been embarrassing but somehow wasn't, and then he turned his head to nuzzle and nip at the side of her neck.

In response, Swoop's eyes flew suddenly wide, and she growled a deep, throaty, alien-animal growl, a sound that she'd never heard emerging from herself, that she wondered at it even as entirely new sensation began to consume her, radiating out from her neck and pushing her farther toward a precipice that she didn't quite understand, not yet. On Starscream's side, the sounds that she was suddenly making were stimulating enough, sending shivers racing through him, but the vibrations of the sound also passed from her body to his, as closely entwined as they were. This took yet another bite out of his rapidly-dwindling self-control, and he began to explore the side of her neck in aggressive earnest.

Nuzzling kisses and licks soon devolved into sharp little nips and then full-on bites as passion rose between them. Judging by the rapturous sounds she made in response to a rather deep bite he'd inflicted on her, Starscream decided that Swoop appreciated his rougher attentions well enough, as he was most certainly appreciating hers.

This continued on for some time, this mutual and not-always-gentle exploration of each other, teasing, tracing, licking, and biting. There were soft murmurs, appreciative whispers, and cries of pleasure and mutual encouragement that were slowly increasing in volume and urgency. As Swoop slowly lost control, there was deep animal growling and snarling, too, which Starscream decided then and there was quite possibly the most erotic sound in the universe when it came from an intelligent and, so he was discovering, delightfully responsive being. They were wrapped around each other, such that it was difficult to tell where Starscream ended and Swoop began. Energy was slowly building in Starscream, spreading throughout his body, a tingling and not-unpleasant pressure building up within his spark just as it should, just as it needed to do for their official purpose here. They were both still on their knees, and Swoop was squirming against Starscream, scratching roughly at him and making soft, sweet noises that were indicative of a need that he wasn't sure that she understood on anything more than a clinical level.

But she would fully understand soon enough, he decided.

Starscream began to nudge at Swoop then, repeatedly leaning his much heavier weight insistently into her until she glommed on to what he wanted. She shifted around so that she could lie back, and she pulled his unresisting body down with her as she went, smiling a smile at him that was partly shy and uncertain but mostly feral and needy. Once Swoop was down, Starscream had access to all of her, and he took full advantage of that, exploring the parts of her body that he hadn't been able to reach while they'd been upright. Swoop squirmed and moaned and occasionally cried out in response to what he was doing to her, and with a building sense of urgency, he began to search for an interface port. She had several of them in various places on her body, as they were used for many purposes other than the one that he intended, but none of them were blatantly advertised.

Swoop, perhaps not quite as clueless about these things as he'd thought she was, realized rather quickly what he was looking for. Moaning wordlessly but needfully, she grabbed one of his hands and guided it down so that it rested half way up the inside of her right thigh. She even helpfully opened the small, protective panel for him while she was down there. Fortunately, the location of that port was quite compatible with one of Starscream's own, situated on the outside of his hip. He recognized faintly that, as a medic, she had probably known that and had guided him accordingly.

Grinning wickedly, he kissed her quickly and then brightly said, "Thanks for the assist, ma'am."

"Anytime," she responded breathlessly, squirming impatiently.

And then she cried out as Starscream jacked into her and immediately sent her a long and high-frequency energy pulse that left her writhing and whimpering in need when he eventually let it ebb. She went still for a moment after that, panting as she processed the experience and the sensations that were pulsing through her in response. Then, wild-eyed and moving quickly, leaving Starscream no chance to resist or even to react, she pulled him fully on top of her, bearing his full weight, and then jacked into him blindly but with medical precision. She reciprocated the energy pulse, instinctively knowing how to do so, and then she clenched her jaw, mewling softly around it as she weathered the echoes of his pleasure, coming as it did so hard on the heels of having experienced her own.

This went on for some time as well, exchanging energy pulses, caresses, and kisses. It was all new for Swoop, so Starscream slowed their pace, taking his time, allowing passion and urgency to build slowly between them. It wasn't as if they had a deadline, and he was very much enjoying her responsiveness. He found, much to his surprise, that he wanted to prolong things between them as much as he could.

Eventually, though, the energy pulses they shared became more powerful and less controlled. Kisses became more frantic and needy, to the point of bruising violence. Gentle, teasing nibbles became brutal bites that dented and eventually penetrated armor, small rivers of energon flowing freely from numerous wounds that neither of them really felt, any pain sensations completely subsumed in overwhelming and counteracting shared pleasure. Caresses became scratches and desperate, pleading, armor-denting clutches. Swoop's legs wrapped themselves around Starscream as if of their own volition, crushing him to her as closely as possible, their bodies grating and scraping against each other, stressed metal squealing in protest but neither of them caring. Neither of them even heard it, as completely lost in each other as they were becoming, drowning in the mutual sensations that they were experiencing, that were amplified and transmitted back and forth to each other by the interface connections, first to the point that it was impossible to discern whose sensation was whose and then to the point that neither much cared who was feeling what so long as the sensations never stopped.

Swoop was soon very close to overload, writhing and shuddering and crying out desperately under Starscream, her legs squeezing him mercilessly as energy pulsed into her and sensation cycled between them in an endless feedback loop. She was keening and wailing and snarling, all control lost. All that was left was her animal self. Wild. Demanding. Violent. Starscream found that he very much liked this side of the Dinobot when it was being used for this purpose rather than to try to kill him. The sounds that Swoop was making and the things that she was doing to him were inflaming and completely different from anything he'd ever experienced with anyone else, and he could only assume that it was because she was, indeed, partly an alien animal.

But if this was what being with an alien animal meant, Starscream found that he had absolutely no cause for complaint.

Swoop tore with abandon, both with fingers and with razor-sharp little teeth, into his armor in order to get at what lay underneath it, which received only slightly gentler treatment. It should have hurt. It _did_ hurt, but Starscream didn't care; the pleasure and the pain commingled nicely, and he wanted it to go on forever. He did everything that he could to encourage her, whispering naughty things at her, concentrating focused attention with his hands and his mouth on various areas of her body that he'd discovered were very sensitive. He kept her mindless with passion and desire but did not let her overload for as long as he possibly could.

Still, occasional coherent pleading did escape Swoop, begging Starscream for something that, for the moment, she didn't know quite how to ask for. Very soon, it was too much, all too much for both of them. Swoop was balanced precariously on a tightrope, and Starscream was well aware that all it would take to send her spiraling into a blinding overload – her very first one – was one judicious little push. Which he was suddenly all too happy to provide: one precisely-controlled push of energy and sensation across the interface connection while he also bit down brutally into her shoulder and dug insistently into an extremely sensitive armor seam that he'd discovered at some point in their mutual journey so far. All of it was guaranteed to shatter her mind.

And it did. Starscream could _feel_ the shattering, the tearing, the overwhelming pleasure that exploded within the small Dinobot who was suddenly struggling and thrashing beneath him, all of it translated, muted only slightly, across the interface connection between them. Swoop cried out, shuddering violently, energy arcing through her and off of her, scorching Starscream in tiny pinpricks wherever it touched him. She arched helplessly up into him, and her legs tightened spasmodically around him with crushing strength. Her mouth was frozen open in silent ecstasy for a fleeting moment, but then she began to wail like the animal that, for the moment, she was. The sounds that she was making, the sheer amount of energy coursing through her, and the bright, powerful echoes of her ecstasy crashing across the interface connection dragged Starscream right along with Swoop into a wash of white heat and light that obliterated all conscious thought and that very nearly knocked both of them completely offline.

Seconds, or minutes, or hours later, once his processors could function again, Starscream found that his forehead had come to rest against the front of Swoop's shoulder as aftershocks rolled lazily through both of them, making both twitch randomly. It faintly registered with Starscream that Swoop was quite literally cooing like a happy dove. He found the sound alone, alien as it was, very pleasing, not to mention the fact that the sonic vibrations transferred quite soothingly to him, as well, as closely pressed against her as he was; his full, much-heavier weight was resting entirely on top of her, although she didn't seem to mind in the slightest. Had they not had other pressing and important matters to attend to, Starscream was convinced that he could have easily allowed the soft, soothing sound that she was making to lull him into a quite contented sleep. But they did indeed have a pressing matter to attend to, and Starscream somehow managed to summon the strength required to lift his head. He gazed down at Swoop's face. She was smiling a soft and deeply contented smile up at him, the fingers of one hand gently tickling up and down the back of his head, the others stroking soothingly along the trailing edge of one of his wings. It twitched and shuddered, of its own volition, under her ministrations.

"You're _very_ good," Swoop murmured appreciatively as their gazes met, her voice low and trilling. She was sated for the moment, completely relaxed. One of her legs was still wrapped loosely around Starscream, a dead but pleasing weight resting heavily on the small of his back.

"I know," Starscream said, aiming an insufferable grin at her before inching slightly down her body, careful not to break the interface connections between them, kissing and nibbling his way soothingly around her chest.

"Very humble, too!" she asserted then, none-too-gently whacking one of his shoulder vents with one hand while incongruously encouraging his efforts with the other, fingers digging gently into the back of his head as he nibbled and licked at her.

Starscream tore his mouth away from Swoop's body and glanced in haughty amusement up at her face for a moment before returning his attention to her body.

"Humility is for lesser beings," he murmured against her.

Swoop snorted at that, but she didn't have a chance to offer more of a rebuttal because Starscream had again zeroed in on that one certain spot on her side that he'd discovered. It seemed to freeze her processors completely in their tracks when he manipulated it…just…so…

Long moments later, when he'd let up on his assault, slowly moving on to other targets that he'd discovered and cataloged, Swoop breathlessly announced, "All right, all right, I agree. You have no need of humility. Ohhhhhhh…Don't stop. Please, please, please don't stop…Please…"

And then her voice devolved into moaning, gasping, and animal keening punctuated here and there with occasional needful whimpers as Starscream worked at her and grinned wickedly against her. This was nice, he decided. Delightful, even. A begging Autobot – a begging _queen,_ no less_ –_ was shuddering and squirming and whimpering beneath him. The interface connections between them were transmitting strong echoes of all the sensations that she was experiencing to him, and energy was building up in him again, nice and steady.

Swoop wasn't completely passive, though. Her mouth was busy on the tip of a conveniently-close shoulder vent of Starscream's. She nibbled and licked and nuzzled away at it, biting down hard on occasion in response to the things that Starscream did to her as he worked his way ever so slowly around her body. Her bites shot pain/pleasure impulses through him, encouraging his efforts. Meanwhile, her talented, medically-trained fingers were scrabbling and scratching along each of Starscream's wings, stroking what she could reach of the flats of them, teasing and tweaking roughly along their edges, and digging mercilessly into particularly sensitive spots when the mood struck her. In very short order, she wasn't the only one who was emitting uncontrolled hisses and cries of pleasure.

Pressure was building in Starscream's spark again. Overload had temporarily eased it, but now it was back with a vengeance, much stronger than it had been before and demanding release in a way that, this time, would not be denied or even delayed for very much longer. He slowly inched himself back up Swoop's body so that he could kiss her mouth, a kiss that she returned with manic fervor, clinging to him, managing to wrap all four limbs around him for a moment. But then she abruptly broke away.

"Starscream," she ground out around desperate, cooling gasps for air, "I want…need…need you to…need…Ah!"

"Shhh," he shushed her, since it seemed that she wasn't quite coherent at the moment. "I know, Swoop. So do I," he soothingly assured her.

And it was the truth. It was time.

While nibbling and licking his way along Swoop's neck, Starscream fumbled with one hand around and along the sides of the stylized pteranodon head that was cradled along the centerline of her torso, blindly searching for a catch of some sort, certain that her spark had to be under there _somewhere_. Eventually, impatiently, Swoop batted his hand away and unlatched it herself, then made a few further adjustments after that that he didn't see, as busy as he was. Once her movements had stilled, Starscream tore his mouth from her throat and stared down at what she'd revealed to him.

Her spark chamber, indeed. It was radiating a feverishly over-bright golden glow, pulsing fast enough that it almost seemed as if it wasn't pulsing at all, humming at a constant fever pitch that was almost a whine, needy and desperate. This, more than anything else, made real and immediate for Starscream exactly what was happening here. Mature royal sparks were golden and, once her transformation was completed, Swoop's eyes would be as well. No one could deny what she was, now, as harsh golden light seeped from between the arms of the protective casing that embraced her spark; it was bright enough to softly illuminate the entirety of their surroundings. The enormity of what Starscream was about to do – creating new lives with her – suddenly weighed heavily on him. Tearing his gaze away from her spark, Starscream looked back up at Swoop's face. She was smiling at him patiently, her eyes bright and knowing, and she raised a hand to stroke his face almost gently, almost comfortingly.

She easily surmised the thoughts fueling his sudden apprehension, and she whispered softly, reassuringly, "It's all right, Starscream."

Then, still smiling and her gaze burning into his, her hand moved away from Starscream's face, her fingers trailing lightly down his throat, and then slowly, teasingly skipping down along his canopy. She blindly but expertly found the catch there, popped it open, and then, digging around a bit, she slid aside a few thick, protective internal armor plates. All of this was done with infinite gentleness and with practiced, confident ease – She was a medic, after all – until his own spark chamber was revealed as well. His spark glowed a brighter-than-usual and fast-pulsing red, counterpointing the golden pulsations of Swoop's at first but then instinctively detecting her rhythm and matching it exactly, pulse for heady, quickening pulse. Tracing around the protective casing – again blindly because by that point she'd levered herself up so that she could kiss him again – Swoop found the connector that would physically link his spark chamber to hers. She yanked on it gently, and then carefully uncoiled the thick but short cable that was attached to the connector as she pulled back slightly from the kiss.

"Just let it happen," she murmured playfully against Starscream's lips, echoing his own impatient words to her that he'd spoken what seemed like forever ago. He could feel her smiling, amused at his expense.

Smirking against her in response, Starscream took possession of the cable she'd unwound and then re-deepened the kiss that she'd started, pushing her roughly down to the ground again and holding her there, pinning her by her shoulder, even though she was offering no resistance whatsoever. His other hand traveled down to her exposed spark casing and busied itself with tracing around it for a moment or two. In response, Swoop emitted a rather cute little squeak, and her spark flared even brighter, which he wouldn't have thought possible. She shifted restlessly under him, making increasingly urgent and impatient noises.

Starscream had to break the kiss in order to make the actual connection; he wasn't a medic, so he couldn't do it blindly. After inching slightly down her body so that he could see what he was doing and then squinting into the harsh glare of the light spilling copiously from her greedy, needful spark, he located the small port on the casing, made the connection, and then inched back up her body, careful not to break the now-multiple connections between them. Since he didn't have much wiggle room now, he laid himself alongside but still partially on top of her.

"I'm sorry," he murmured sincerely against her audio once he'd settled himself. "This is going to hurt quite a bit," he warned her, just in case she wasn't aware.

"I know," Swoop replied stoically. And then she reached down and nonchalantly disconnected the interface connections between them. "I don't know about you," she said almost regretfully, "but I don't particularly want _this_ cycling back and forth between us." And then, half a second later, she screamed a piercing scream as the pent-up energy from Starscream's spark rushed to infuse hers in a cascade of frightening power, white-hot sparks leaping between them. It was all Starscream could do not to reflexively jerk away from her.

Swoop writhed, crying out in blinding, spark-rending pain. Her spark was absorbing an enormous amount of energy from Starscream's, all of the extra energy, and then some, that had been building up in him since she'd imprinted on him and that had increased exponentially once they were together again. The infusion would trigger her spark's division into new ones, entirely new lives. This was what her spark, and hers alone, was specialized to do, but that didn't mean that it was at all pleasant for her.

Starscream found that it was unexpectedly difficult to watch Swoop struggle with excruciating pain for what seemed like hours, although he knew it was only a minute or two, at most. As she writhed and thrashed and cried out to the heavens, fingers scrabbling at and digging into the dirt and leaf litter underneath her, her body arching helplessly off the ground, he reflected that the line between agony and ecstasy was a very thin one, the physical reactions to both very similar. And he resolved that, when the pain was done, when they had fulfilled their duty, he was going to do his damndest to make Swoop forget the agony by giving her an overbalancing amount of ecstasy. It was, he knew, almost-tenderness toward her, and it was unaccustomed, greatly disquieting….and entirely the effect of the imprint. But at the moment, he didn't care.

By the time that the energy transfer was complete, Swoop was reduced to whimpering softly, helplessly in pain. Her entire body was shuddering violently, near to convulsing, and excess energy was fitfully arcing off of her. Her face was scrunched up in agony, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her breath gasping and labored. Her spark flared a deep, fiery orange for a moment, as it greedily absorbed the last bit of energy from Starscream before slowly returning to placid soft gold, pulsing more slowly and regularly now. The light that seeped from around its casing muted almost instantly from harsh, feverish brilliance to mellow, liquid glow, sublimely beautiful to behold.

Starscream stared at the essence of her for a long while as Swoop recovered, wondering at it and at what they had just done. Then he terminated the connection between them, whimsically laid a gentle kiss on her spark casing, gently slid thick, protective internal armor plates back into place, and then carefully restored the pteranodon head to its rightful place down the centerline of Swoop's torso. Then, pushing himself up to lean on one hip alongside her, propped up on one arm, he stroked his other hand soothingly up and down the length her body, murmuring mostly-wordless but comforting sounds at her. He kept doing that until the pained tension entirely left her, her breathing slowing and smoothing. It took a while to do so, but eventually Swoop relaxed, opening her eyes and looking up at the Seeker, her gaze curiously and questioningly searching his.

"I'm sorry," Starscream murmured to her again, still stroking her, before she could say anything to him.

Swoop gave him an odd look at that, squinting up at him as she tried to determine his intentions now, frowning deeply.

"There's no reason to be," she eventually replied, going for a level, disinterested tone, but her voice was still roughened with the pain that she'd just experienced. "It's just how it is. I knew that, going into this."

"That doesn't mean that I can't be sorry," Starscream answered her softly. "Or," he added pointedly, "that I can't make it up to you."

Leaning down then, not giving Swoop a chance to respond or protest, Starscream kissed her. She was surprised and disconcerted at first, having expected nothing of the sort from him, having expected only indifference at best as the imprint between them began to dissolve, having expected him to leave her without so much as a backward glance – or, worse, to try to kill her – as soon as they had accomplished their task, thus freeing him of his physical obligation to her. But he didn't do any of that.

Instead, he was kissing her with utterly startling gentleness, with feeling, with _tenderness_, and she found herself responding, eagerly, in kind, reaching up to touch him hesitantly at first but with increasing confidence as the kiss progressed and then as he broke it to pepper smaller kisses along her jaw line and the down the side of her neck. He paused to suckle gently at the juncture of her neck and her shoulder for a while, and she shuddered in response, the reaction emanating from the deepest parts of her.

Surprising. So _very_ surprising.

But the night had been full of surprises, for both of them, and once Starscream expertly re-established the mutual interface connections between them they did not hesitate to completely lose themselves in each other again. Swoop managed to reverse their positions this time, so that she was straddling him, giving her fuller access to his body than she'd had when she'd been pinned under his weight, and she made excellent use of that advantage. Starscream was soon gone, helplessly drowning in her surprising and apparently endless depths, not even entertaining the thought of rescue.

* * *

_Uh, yeah. This would be the longest chapter of the story so…ahem…thanks for slogging through it. :)_

_In case anyone's curious…I have this habit of picking real-life spots to set my stories/chapters, even if I don't explicitly spell out where that story/chapter is taking place. This one is no exception. The gorge in this chapter is Bala Gorge in Bolivia. I've been there. It's gorgeous, hot, wet, and remote, so it seemed a good place. If you're even more curious, here's a pic of the area that I dug up on the webs:_

_www4. clikpic .com/ jamesbrunker /images /Rurre13 .jpg_

_There are curiously few pics of the area on the web, actually. It's quite the shame because it is, as I said, gorgeous…_

_**Next time:**__ Starscream goes home. Not the most exciting chapter in the universe, but there is a bit of foreshadowing here and there in it, so pay attention. Take notes. There will be a quiz later. OK, not really, but still… _


	4. 2: OffWhite Lies

_**Note:** This chapter was updated 1/5/10, mostly as part of the effort to fix this story's overall narrative voice to make it consistently third-person. There may be minor changes from the original, but nothing plot-significant._

_

* * *

_

_**2: Off-White Lies**_

The rising sun was chasing Starscream as he flew toward Decepticon Headquarters. It was as if it was eternally prolonging the moment that he had found himself awakening to the sunrise and to the unfamiliar but nevertheless very pleasant sensation of Swoop paying some very meticulous attention to his canopy.

_I could get used to this_, had been the first bleary and blasphemous thought that had sighed its way through Starscream's mind. Once more rational thought took over, he had simply been strangely happy that Swoop hadn't just chosen to leave without saying a proper good-bye, since she had obviously recovered from and awakened from the previous night's exertions before he had. She had told him, with almost endearing shyness given the nature of those previous exertions, that she had fully intended to leave, but then she had decided that she wanted to thank him for what he had done for her.

And thank him, she did. Gloriously.

It had been quite the chore to drag himself away from her, especially knowing that the next time he saw her she'd be trying to kill him and he her. So it had strangely been one of the hardest things he'd ever done when he had pulled Swoop to her feet and had indulged in a prolonged good-bye kiss and had then tossed himself off the edge of the cliff. He had allowed himself a bit of heady freefall before transforming and skimming along the surface of the river until it became too narrow to accommodate his wingspan, and he'd had to pull up in order to clear the jagged spine of the Andes, anyway.

The pull that Starscream still felt toward Swoop was disquieting. Greatly disturbing. Really, it had not waned in the slightest, and he could only hope that the lingering effect of the imprint would go away soon. As in, "before he got back to Headquarters" soon, preferably. Of course, that didn't happen; Starscream rarely got his way when it came to just about anything. So as he flew into the gaping maw of Headquarters's raised docking tower, he was fighting a very strong impulse to bank right back around and fly out again.

To go back to her.

To find her wherever she was, even if she was smack in the middle of Autobot Headquarters by now.

To have her again and again and again.

It was _very_ difficult to quell the urge to obey the impulse. Had Starscream not been almost completely drained of energy from the previous night's and the morning's activities, he might very well have lost the fight. As it was, he had barely enough energy left – maybe – to report in and then to go crash somewhere. If he was lucky, the crashing wouldn't end up happening in a public corridor.

Starscream transformed as the huge docking tower door wheezed unsteadily shut behind him. Someone needed to get in there and overhaul its control mechanisms; it probably hadn't been done in the twenty-five years that had passed since the door had been constructed. One of these days, the damned thing was going to refuse to function at all, probably at the most inopportune time. He made a mental note to have it seen to, realizing as he did so that thinking about such mundane things – _normal_ things – was almost soothing. It was a distraction that momentarily gave his mind something to think about other than what had happened during the last eighteen hours or so, but the effect was ultimately fleeting.

Glancing around himself, Starscream found that he was alone in the hangar bay as it retracted back into the depths of Headquarters. That meant that he had a few solitary minutes to collect himself, especially because he knew well the few spots in the hangar bay that were out of the view of the security cameras. He stepped wearily over to one of those places and slid unsteadily down against the bulkhead, ignoring the indignant screech of metal on metal, until he was sitting on the deck plates. He found that he was shaking, and he willed himself to stop. Eventually, grudgingly, his body obeyed. Taking a deep, calming breath, Starscream tried to shove all memories of the past night out of the forefront of his thoughts. It was very, very difficult to do so, but he knew that he needed to be calm and collected and, most importantly, attentive and wary when he reported to Megatron.

Megatron had to suspect nothing. He had to believe that Starscream had carried out his mission, exactly as ordered. Starscream knew that he would find out that Swoop was still alive eventually, but likely not any time within the coming weeks. Starscream deeply suspected that the Autobots would keep Swoop on a very short leash until she could be delivered of the new sparks that were most certainly already beginning to develop within her. The Autobots might prattle on _ad nauseum _about freedom, but he was certain that Swoop would have none for the foreseeable future. For Starscream, that was a very good thing. But after that, once the Autobots let Swoop out of her cage and once Megatron had definitive proof that she still lived, there would be very unpleasant repercussions for Starscream unless he could devise a way around them, and he was confident that he would do so, eventually. But until then, Starscream would simply evade and outright lie his little tail rudders off.

As usual.

Starscream grinned to himself at the thought, slowly starting to feel more in control of his own mind, more like himself. Utter chaos still lurked just under the surface, but he'd managed to construct a veneer of calm control over it. Which was a good thing because, a moment after that, a soft bump indicated that the docking tower had completed its descent. It was time to face Megatron.

Walking through the corridors of Decepticon Headquarters, Starscream garnered more than a few surreptitious but curious glances and double-takes from the Decepticons that he encountered. He glared at those who were less than surreptitious about their quizzical inspection of their second-in-command, and they subsided, averting their curious gazes with alacrity. But Starscream knew that the looks were understandable. He was covered in dirt, riddled with dents both small and somewhat large, scored with deep scratches, and there were a distressing number of armor-penetrating bite wounds all over his body, some of them quite large, a few of them sparking fitfully. Starscream was, under normal circumstances, quite fastidious about his appearance. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't be caught dead parading through the corridors looking as he did at the moment. But this time, Starscream was wearing his dirt and everything else with aplomb. With pride, even. This, he imagined, was not at all what his comrades would expect to see. So, they stared. Or at least they _glanced_, if they weren't bold enough to actually stare. Inwardly, all of it amused him.

When he arrived at the bridge, Starscream squared his shoulders in the second before the doors slid apart in front of him. Having no desire to answer a lot of questions about the previous night's events, he had every intention of making the necessary encounter as short as possible. But for the short time that he was there, he knew that he had to appear and behave as normally as possible, to avoid raising undue suspicion that he might be up to something, as, indeed, he was. Or had been, at least. As the doors opened, Starscream strode through them confidently, posture straight, shoulders square, expression as haughty as he could possibly make it.

Megatron turned away from the viewscreen as he heard the doors slide open…and then he froze and stared at Starscream for a long moment as his second approached him. A bewildered expression soon settled over his face, and his head slowly tilted to one side, as if he thought he could make better sense of Starscream's disheveled appearance from a more diagonal perspective. Starscream held his gaze levelly, chin raised challengingly. He was waiting for the inevitable withering comment and was already formulating an appropriate possible response, but then, off to the side, he heard Skywarp attempt but utterly fail to suppress a snicker at his expense, ruining the moment. Starscream glared at him. So did Megatron before he turned back to Starscream.

"Welcome back, Starscream," he rumbled snidely.

Starscream adopted an insolent air and folded his arms across his chest, staring levelly back at the Decepticon leader.

"Thank you," Starscream answered with a judicious touch of airy impudence, but that was all that he said. Megatron hadn't demanded that he say anything else, and Starscream had decided not to offer up any information that he wasn't directly asked to provide.

Megatron continued to stare at Starscream, apparently waiting for him to say something else. When he offered nothing, he emitted an irritated little sigh that greatly amused Starscream.

"Well?" Megatron finally, exasperatedly demanded, glaring his customary glare at his insolent second.

"Mission accomplished," Starscream reported brightly, with a crisp, entirely proper, but still somehow mocking salute; it was the little things like that that tended to wedge more easily under Megatron's armor and that therefore amused the Seeker the most. And what Starscream told him wasn't a lie, exactly. He _had_ accomplished his own mission; Megatron hadn't specifically asked him if he'd accomplished _his_ mission. "I trust that you do not want a full _public_ accounting of all the sordid details, however," Starscream added pointedly, and it wasn't a question.

Megatron considered that for a moment, glancing around himself. None of the room's current occupants – like Skywarp, for instance, who was watching the two of them with surreptitious but still avid curiosity – knew exactly what Starscream had been up to yesterday evening. And Megatron knew that it was better, for his own sake, if not too much was said now on that particular subject. Starscream had been counting on that, or at the very least he'd been hoping that there would be uninformed personnel on the bridge when he arrived to report in.

"Not really," Megatron finally growled distastefully when his gaze returned to Starscream, his eyes raking over him in disgust. He crossed his arms over his massive chest and gave Starscream a very displeased glare for good measure, in payment for Starscream having effectively thwarted his attempt to extract more information. This, too, amused Starscream.

"Good," Starscream said, nodding in satisfaction. And then he pointedly turned his back on Megatron and swept decisively and somewhat imperiously toward the doors of the bridge without being dismissed. "I'm going to go clean up, then," he announced dismissively over his shoulder as he headed toward the doors. "And then, I am going to recharge for the rest of the day. And I had better not be disturbed," he added threateningly, as the doors slid closed behind him and he made good his escape.

* * *

_**Next time:** Swoop sleeps in. Way in._


	5. 3: Crash

_**Note:** This chapter was updated 1/5/10, mostly as part of the effort to fix this story's overall narrative voice to make it consistently third-person. There may be minor changes from the original, but nothing plot-significant._

_

* * *

_

_**3: Crash**_

Swoop awoke to sunlight streaming brightly, swirling with sparkling dust motes, through the row of clerestory windows of her room. It was a reminder of how much she loved the sunniness of her room; she was surprised that Snarl had not fought her for it, even though it was really too small for him…

She also, however, awoke to a very unamused Ratchet, who was scowling down at her. His arms were folded tightly over his bulky chest, and he was bouncing unhappily on his heels. It was a sure sign of vast displeasure, the kind of displeasure that he usually reserved for Optimus Prime when he was being heroically stupid as well as for certain Lamborghinis pretty much all the time.

_Ouch_, she thought with a mental wince.

Wheeljack was there, too, peeking warily over Ratchet's shoulder and regarding Swoop with deeply agitated worry.

_Great_, she mentally sighed.

"Hi?" she ventured uncertainly, aloud. She wasn't at all used to waking up to people crowded around her recharge berth, staring at her.

Swoop recognized that she was in trouble, of course. She had disobeyed direct orders quite flagrantly, and there were always consequences of that, consequences that she wouldn't be able to escape just because she was a queen, a concept that even now didn't seem quite real to her. Really, Swoop just wasn't sure quite how much or what kind of trouble she was in yet. If Optimus Prime or, Primus forbid, _Prowl_ ended up joining the party, then she would know that she was in seriously deep doo-doo, but so far it was just the mother hens.

Which, when she thought about it, was actually sort of worse.

"You were _supposed_ to report directly to the medbay," Ratchet was severely informing her, meanwhile.

Which was true. She'd chosen to disregard Ratchet's request-that-wasn't-a-request and instead returned to the quarters that she shared with her brothers, where she'd been welcomingly hugged by all four of them in turn, nearly crushed by Sludge, in particular. More importantly, she had not been asked any questions whatsoever before…before… The last thing she remembered after having a wash to get rid of the dirt caked on her was snuggling on the couch in the common area, watching some movie or another, one with lots of loud explosions, which meant that it was one that Slag had picked. Her head had been resting in Slag's lap, and he'd been absently but very soothingly stroking her head crest, and her feet had been resting on Grimlock. It had been comfortingly _normal_. Normality like that wasn't going to last, she knew, not now, but while it had lasted, it had been _exactly_ what she'd needed.

Now, Swoop sighed and sat up slowly, feeling woozy and unsettled as she did so. A dull but insistent ache was radiating from the general vicinity of her spark chamber. She knew that this was to be expected, though, so she was not overly worried about it. Once upright and once the world stopped spinning around her, she pulled her knees into her chest and then looked up at Ratchet, who was still glaring demandingly down at her.

"I know, Ratchet," Swoop said as innocently and contritely as possible, making with the puppy-dog eyes for good measure; they usually worked like a charm on Wheeljack, at least. "I know. And I'm sorry. I just didn't feel like being poked and prodded and asked a lot of…uncomfortable questions."

Ratchet sighed irritably, but his expression softened by a smidgen, his displeased posture relaxed a little, and Swoop suppressed a sigh of relief. Wheeljack, meanwhile, took advantage of the easing-off of tensions and ducked around Ratchet. He plopped himself on the edge of Swoop's berth and then, reaching toward her, he cupped her face in both of his hands, insistently forcing her to look at him.

"Are you all right?" he asked urgently, fearfully, "ears" flaring manically. His face was inches from Swoop's, his gaze boring into her as he eyed her critically. "Did he hurt you?" he demanded to know. "Because if he did, then I swear to Primus I'll—"

Swoop had to fight to keep from laughing at Wheeljack's ever-deep well of paternal concern and protectiveness. She knew that he had been and apparently still was deeply worried about the whole thing with Starscream. He'd made that very obvious when she had left Headquarters, fretting and acting as if he'd never see her again. Laughing at his concern now would be cruel, though, and Swoop could never be cruel to Wheeljack. Never.

"Wheeljack, I'm _fine_!" she interrupted him reassuringly, reaching up to grab each of his hands with one of her own, pulling them away from her face and then squeezing them comfortingly. "Starscream was… He behaved," she added, sincerely. "Really. He didn't hurt me at all except…where necessary."

Swoop didn't have the heart to tell Wheeljack that she had quite enjoyed her deflowering, actually, both before and _definitely_ after the comparatively brief interlude of intense pain like she'd never experienced before. Starscream really was just that good. But Wheeljack would not want to hear that and definitely wouldn't understand. No Autobot would. It was something that she would have to keep to herself forever, and she was fine with that. She freely acknowledged that it would be interesting to see what would happen the next time she and Starscream met, though…

Meanwhile, Swoop's assurances seemed to remove a huge burden from Wheeljack's shoulders because suddenly he was grabbing her and enveloping her in a tight, relieved hug.

"Oh, thank Primus!" he breathed fervently, clinging to Swoop for a long moment. Then, pulling back from her, hands gripping the sides of her shoulders almost painfully, he added. "I was so worried. We all were. Especially because you were gone for so long. I think even Prowl was a little freaked, by the end."

Swoop smiled at that, knowing that he was exaggerating but not caring at all. And then she heard an explosive snort from the direction of the doorway to her room. Sure enough, Slag had poked his head into the room and was scowling in distaste at the love-fest playing out in front of him.

"_I_ wasn't worried," he announced loftily. When all eyes shifted toward him, he gave Swoop an exaggeratedly weary look, and added, "_Told_ 'em you've kicked Starscream's aft _hundreds_ of times, Swoop, would just do it again if you had to. Do they listen to me? Noooooo…"

Swoop grinned widely and brightly at him, gave him a thumbs-up, and crowed, "ESAKS, baby!"

Slag responded with a similar wolfish grin and a thumbs-up of his own before pulling his head back, and the door to Swoop's room slid closed again.

Wheeljack looked at Swoop askance.

"ESAKS?" he asked, befuddled.

"Elite Seeker Aft-Kicking Squad," she explained…and then she leaned back against the wall at the head of her berth, suddenly feeling tired and very drained.

The unsettled, achy feeling from her spark had increased. Its usually-steady pulse that subtly underscored her life was off, slightly but noticeably; it was racing and then slowing randomly. The fluctuations were making her queasy and not a little light-headed, and she closed her eyes for just a moment, hoping that the sensation would pass. She dimly heard a scuffling sound, and then muted and strangely garbled voices, and then the high-pitched whining whir of a medscanner quite close by. She opened her eyes to see that Wheeljack and Ratchet had suddenly exchanged places. Ratchet was now perched on the edge of her berth, and he was scanning her with a deeply concerned expression on his face while Wheeljack anxiously paced the tight confines of the room.

"What?" Swoop asked indignantly, feebly batting away Ratchet's scanner. "I'm just tired."

"Swoop," Ratchet said calmly but firmly, the tone of his voice compelling her to look at him. He gave her a penetrating, concerned, and very serious look as her gaze met his. "You've been sleeping for two days. You shouldn't be tired at all. Plus, you just lost consciousness for about ten minutes."

Swoop just stared at him for a long moment, and then blinked owlishly at him.

"Two days?" she eventually echoed, incredulously. "And I did?"

Ratchet nodded, scowling at the scanner's readings, not looking at her.

"Totally down for the count," he confirmed with a brusque nod. "And Grimlock not three minutes ago oh-so-helpfully informed me," he added acidly, "that you were in some sort of fugue state during those two days because you didn't seem to know who you were, who they were, or where you were. Once, Snarl found you wandering up and down the corridor, not really awake."

"And you kept calling Slag Starscream," Wheeljack wryly added. "He was a mite insulted."

"Mmmm," Ratchet sourly agreed. "Needless to say, I'll be having some…discussions…with your brothers about taking medical matters into their own hands. Once I get _you_ squared away, that is."

Swoop was gaping at both of them, meanwhile, trying to absorb all that they'd said.

"I don't remember any of that," she informed them dumbfoundedly.

"'Course you don't!" Ratchet responded with an exasperated snort. "That's what happens when you're in a fugue state!" Then his voice and his entire demeanor softened, and he laid a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Look, Swoop," he said, "I know you did some research about all of this so that you'd know what to expect. But I think that you're forgetting that your origins are not exactly typical, so this might not go exactly how it's supposed to go for you. You need to be closely monitored."

Swoop sighed.

"I know, I know," she said quietly, resignedly.

"And I know," Ratchet continued, still softly, "that medics make the very worst patients, but I… Winglet, I need to keep a very close eye on you during all of this. All right? Please? For me?"

Swoop stared at Ratchet, shocked. If he was using pet names – much less saying please! – then he had to be really concerned. Wheeljack used pet names for Swoop and her brothers all the time, usually without even thinking about it, but her other "dad" wasn't nearly so demonstrative. Only when he was really worried did Ratchet get even vaguely sappy. So, Swoop was suddenly worried, too. She tapped the scanner in his hand with a fingertip.

"What's that thing saying that has you so worried, Ratchet?" she asked. "I have a right to know," she added firmly, to head off any arguments he might try to offer.

Ratchet sighed.

"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, you do. So, you should know that you're experiencing power fluctuations in your spark, some dangerously strong surges and dangerously deep troughs well beyond what should be, so far as we know, happening. _And_ you don't seem to be assimilating energon like you should be, which is why you can hardly stay awake and why normal recharge isn't really helping. So, one of those troughs combined with low energy levels in general is probably what brought on that half-waking state that you were in."

"Oh," Swoop responded, blinking as she assimilated the information, the medic in her seeing clearly now why Ratchet was so concerned.

"So," Ratchet continued firmly, "you're off-duty until I say otherwise. We're going straight to the medbay where I'll be running a full, deep-level diagnostic on you to figure out what's happening here. And I'll be keeping you in the medbay for close observation for at least a week. I want to make sure that these odd issues don't have anything to do with…with Starscream being…involved."

Swoop heaved a reluctant sigh. Extended confinement in the medbay was the very last thing that she wanted. But she knew that Ratchet was right, that his…suggestions…were logical and that she should acquiesce. Because this wasn't about what she wanted. If everything had gone according to plan, she was beginning to produce new lives even as they were speaking, and she already felt deeply, instinctively compelled to protect them, and at the moment, protecting them meant taking care of herself, even if doing so meant endless days of boredom. So, Swoop nodded at Ratchet, wordlessly signaling to him that she was agreeing with his requests which weren't, of course, requests at all.

"That's my girl," Ratchet said approvingly, squeezing her hand and then using it to pull her to my feet. She swayed a bit, the world spinning around her for a moment, but then it steadied, and she waved away Ratchet's further assistance.

Swoop felt very weak, though, as she walked out of her room and through the common area of her and her brothers' shared quarters, and then out into the corridor. She knew it would be a little over five weeks before the new sparks could be removed from her, and she wondered if she was going to feel this weak and exhausted and foggy and not-exactly-unpleasantly floaty the entire time. If so, she acknowledged that it was still worth it; it just wouldn't be much fun.

The three of them walked slowly, silently, toward the medbay. Swoop was in the middle and Wheeljack and Ratchet were to either side of her, hovering worriedly. It was a short walk to the medbay, though, so Swoop certainly wasn't anticipating trouble.

Unfortunately, trouble seemed to have a way of finding her, wherever she went and whatever she did. And this time, trouble came over her very suddenly, blackness rapidly eating away at the edges of her vision, quickly reducing her field of vision to a very narrow and distorted tunnel, the world spinning crazily again. A rapid series of sharp, stabbing pains lanced out from her spark, and she groaned and staggered from the force of it, crashing headlong into Wheeljack. He scooped her up into his arms and, without further thought, started running. Dimly, as Swoop lost consciousness, she heard Ratchet's voice up ahead, frantically yelling at people to get the hell out of the way, and she wondered what all the fuss was about.

* * *

_**Next time:**__ Soooooo…Just what the hell is going on here, you ask? You'll get some answers when next I update… _


	6. 4: Rejection

_**Note:** This chapter was updated 1/5/10, mostly as part of the effort to fix this story's overall narrative voice to make it consistently third-person. This chapter was already in third-person, but I made some minor changes to it, too. None of the changes are plot-significant. In fact, they're barely noticeable, except to to me since I practically had/have this whole damned story memorized now! *sigh*_

_

* * *

_

_**4: Rejection**_

"So you're telling me that this has absolutely nothing to do with Starscream?" Optimus Prime asked, looking up almost in disbelief as he finished reading the brief summary report that Ratchet had plunked down in front of him before he'd flopped down into one of the chairs on the other side of Prime's desk. "You're sure about that?"

Ratchet sighed wearily and slumped down farther into his chair.

"Yes, Prime. I am 187% certain that Starscream has nothing at all to do with this," the medic confirmed with a deeply weary sigh. "He apparently did exactly what he needed to do. No more, no less. Didn't even try to kill her, which I still don't understand, but…"

"But who knows what goes on in his whacked little spark?" Prime agreed, finishing the medic's thought for him as his voice trailed off. "You," he added, in bemusement, "sound almost disappointed, though."

"That's because I _am _disappointed!" Ratchet answered, testy with frustration and fatigue. "Something like Starscream implanting a virus in Swoop's systems in order to crash her would likely be a relatively simple fix. But this…This, I'm afraid, is—"

"Not an easy fix," Wheeljack, sprawled dejectedly in the seat next to Ratchet, dispiritedly interjected. "If it can be fixed at all."

At that, Optimus Prime leaned tiredly back into his own chair and rubbed at his face with one hand.

"So let me see if I understand this correctly," he said after a moment spent gathering his thoughts. "When you two built the Dinobots, you used five of the sparks we'd brought with us from Cybertron."

Ratchet nodded, murmuring a "Yes" when it appeared that Prime was looking for a verbal cue in order to continue his summation.

"But since the sparks were damaged," he continued, "you had to fill in some holes, so to speak."

"Yep," Wheeljack tiredly confirmed. "I tried to make them true to what was known of the animals that they were based on. I grant you that it wasn't my most brilliant idea ever, in retrospect, but it seems to have turned out for the best in the end."

Prime nodded.

"Luckily for you," he grumbled. "And for them." Then he continued, "But now you're telling me that the spark you chose at random to use for Swoop used to belong to someone else. A royal."

"A royal _daughter_, to be precise," Ratchet clarified, nodding. "Who, just as she should now that her spark has matured and her mother is dead and she has no surviving female relatives, has arisen as the new queen."

Prime nodded.

"Which," he said, "would seem to make all kinds of sense, given that so far as we know queens only come from queens, and we all of a sudden have a queen on our hands."

"Mmmm," Ratchet murmured in agreement and then added, "I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Swoop used to be the queen's youngest daughter, who as I recall was a newborn when the massacre happened. Some loyal individual, one with extensive medical knowledge, must have removed her spark from her body. And then, since it was immature, they were able to hide her spark amongst the others in stasis without anyone knowing the difference. They were probably hoping that something like what happened would happen, thus restoring the royal line at some point in the future."

"All right, then," Prime said, nodding, absorbing the information. "Assuming that all of that is true, what I don't understand is why this is causing such massive problems for Swoop, why she's comatose now."

At that, Ratchet groaned in both frustration and exhaustion.

"It's precisely _because_ her spark is royal," he said wearily. When Prime just regarded him quizzically, he further explained, "It's the one thing that her 'rescuer,' for all of his good intentions otherwise, didn't take into consideration."

Optimus continued to stare at the medic, still quizzical, but also expectant and slowly becoming less patient. Ratchet sensed the latter easily enough, so he launched into a weary explanation.

"Originally," Ratchet explained, sighing, "she was bred in both spark and body from the queen. So, her spark's energy, from its very first moment of existence, has been uniquely attuned to a body that, now, no longer exists. It's because of the unique nature of their birth that the sparks of royals are far less flexible than others and usually will not adapt to transplantation at all."

Optimus nodded in comprehension when Ratchet paused to see if he was following. This physical weakness of the royals, combined with the fact that they were the individuals who ensured the perpetuation of their species, was the reason why, historically, they had required a higher level of protection, thus giving the warrior caste its _raison d'être. _He knew all of this.

"So far as I've been able to tell," Ratchet continued, "the only reason why the spark that we used for Swoop was able to adapt to a new body at all is _because_ it had been damaged. The 'patches' that Wheeljack coded allowed her to survive implantation and integration into a new body, but…Well, they're not allowing her to function perfectly _well_."

"Which explains a lot, actually," Wheeljack quietly put in. When Prime just looked at him, he added, "If you'll recall, Swoop's always been kind of…glitchy. Like for instance there was that time she experienced near-terminal cascade failure when she was only a few years old, and even to this day we couldn't figure out why it happened. And then there's the way she's always had random systems failures here and there ever since then, for no apparent reason. It's never been anything as catastrophic as cascade failure, but still…"

Ratchet nodded in agreement as Wheeljack's voice trailed off and added, "We always figured there was something wrong with her body or its programming somewhere and that it was randomly triggering the systems failures, even though every deep-level diagnostic I ever ran turned up nothing. Even the code-level diagnostics that Wheeljack ran showed nothing wrong. But it turns out we were looking in entirely the wrong place. It's not Swoop's body or its coding that's the problem. It's her spark. Or rather, it's the interaction between the two."

"So what you're telling me," Optimus clarified, "is that there's some sort of incompatibility?"

"Yes," Ratchet confirmed. "We never looked for something like that before because we had no reason to suspect that Swoop's spark was any different from any other non-royal's. But now we know that's not the case at all. So now, it's like a human's body rejecting a transplanted organ. Only in this case, Swoop's spark is trying to reject her _entire_ body in favor of one that no longer exists. And I'm afraid it's only going to get worse."

"Worse?" Optimus asked. "As in…?"

"As in we could very well lose her, yes," Ratchet announced bluntly, in answer to Prime's hesitant, unfinished question.

"That's not an option, Ratchet," Prime snapped, stabbing a demanding finger at the medic. "We need her. Without her, we're…"

"I'm well aware of that, Prime," Ratchet acidly answered around a jaw that was suddenly clenched as lingering, latent anger bubbled to the surface. Then, forcibly calming himself, he growled, "And for your information, as far as I'm concerned, Swoop's not disposable, and her value has nothing to do with her social status. As much as she's apparently a queen's daughter, she's also _my_ daughter. And Wheeljack's."

Optimus blinked at Ratchet's sudden anger, but then realized that he shouldn't have been so surprised. Ratchet wasn't as openly devoted to the Dinobots as Wheeljack was, but the parental-esque concern and protective tendencies were still very much there in him, especially where Swoop was concerned. Usually, they were dormant, lurking just under the surface, but they most definitely arose when Ratchet deemed it necessary. Such as when one of the Dinobots was injured. Or when an Autobot was, in Ratchet's estimation, unnecessarily or unthinkingly cruel to one of them. Or now, in the wake of Optimus's own comment. So, as usual in these situations, Optimus found himself sighing apologetically.

"I know, Ratchet," he said quietly. "I know. And…I'm sorry I snapped."

Ratchet's anger bled from him as quickly as it had appeared, and he waved aside Prime's apology.

"It's all right," he said quietly. "Understandable, even," he added tiredly. Uncharacteristically, he further added, "And I'm sorry _I_ snapped. I'm just…tired."

Optimus nodded in acknowledgement, even though the apology wasn't really necessary as far as he was concerned. He knew that it had been a long stretch of days for Ratchet and Wheeljack, as they had puzzled out what was wrong with Swoop. She had gone fully comatose, her systems beginning slowly but surely to shut down, mere hours after they'd gotten her to the medbay. That had been three days ago, and Ratchet and Wheeljack had spent that time running every scan and test that they could think of and then spending endless hours interpreting the results until it had all started to come horrifyingly together. Simultaneously, they'd been fighting a constant battle to keep Swoop's vital systems online; without them, her singular spark would fade, and if that happened then their species's only chance at natural continuance would fade as well. Ratchet hadn't taken a break, much less fully recharged, since Swoop had gone completely unresponsive, and it had been even longer for Wheeljack. So, they were both feeling utterly drained, stretched almost to the breaking point. This tended to make Wheeljack depressed and convinced that he was utterly useless as a part-time medic; it tended to make Ratchet much touchier than usual.

"So what's the bottom line here, Ratchet?" Prime wanted to know. "What are we looking at?"

After taking a moment to pinch tiredly at the bridge of his nose, Ratchet answered, "The major problems started right after Swoop returned from her…uh, sojourn with Starscream, so the rejection appears to have greatly intensified as a result of the maturation and…er, mating…of her spark. At the moment, I'm fresh out of ideas as to how we might address, much less fix, the problem. She's stable at this very moment, and her spark is beginning to undergo the division process as it should even though her body is slowly shutting down, but…"

Ominous silence fell in the room as Ratchet's voice trailed off. Eventually, though, Wheeljack pushed up out of his chair and began to pace around Prime's office. After a minute or two of pacing, he turned to face Prime and the medic, leveling an uncertain look at both of them.

"I think I might have an idea," he tentatively announced. Then, noticing the look that Ratchet was giving him, he pointed an accusing finger at him and added, "Don't look at me like that, Ratch. I just now thought of it."

"Go, Wheeljack," Optimus said, somewhat urgently, attempting to stave off a potential bickering session between the two. They happened more frequently when one or the other of the two was weary beyond words, and right now they were _both_ weary beyond words. Prime knew that he needed to keep them focused so that Wheeljack's formidable processors could properly nurture his seed of an idea, whatever it was.

Wheeljack was silent for a moment or two, gathering his thoughts. Then he announced, "The problem here is basically energy incompatibility. Swoop's spark is 'expecting' her body to resonate and operate at a certain baseline signature frequency, the only frequency it's ever really known. Since it's not finding that signature, especially now that she's mature and undergoing the…uh, royal transformation, it's freaking out. Right?"

"Essentially, yes," Ratchet agreed, nodding.

"So," Wheeljack continued, starting to meditatively pace again as he spoke, "it would seem to _me_, not being a medic but a mere _lowly_ engineer, that what she needs is a body whose signature frequency matches the one that her spark is expecting to find. If we can somehow make that happen, then things _should_ be just peachy, right?"

"Yes," Ratchet agreed readily but skeptically. "Theoretically. We could construct a new body for her easily enough, sure. Sludge has already conceptualized an exterior redesign for her, thinking that she might want one now; you'd just need to engineer it."

Wheeljack nodded.

"Sludge gave me his drawings. I've got it 97% engineered already." He shrugged sheepishly at the tiredly amused look that Ratchet gave him. "It took my mind off things while she was…away."

Ratchet snorted and continued, "It'll be tricky, not to mention risky, transplanting her when her spark's already under stress. But…I don't think we have a choice, and it's probably doable _if_ we do it quickly, before the physical divisions start in a week or so. _But_ the odds of finding the precise signature her spark wants just by trial and error before it's too late are—"

"Astronomical, yes," Wheeljack supplied agreeably, nodding. "_But_," he added, holding up a finger to forestall the argument that he knew Ratchet was about to lob at him, "we don't have to do that totally by trial and error."

Both Optimus Prime and the medic just blinked at him, not following him.

"And how do you figure that, 'Jack?" Ratchet eventually asked.

"_Because_," Wheeljack concluded, "we have access to someone who can give us a _very_ good idea of where to begin."

Ratchet blinked at Wheeljack again, but then he realized exactly who Wheeljack was talking about.

"Primus!" Ratchet explosively responded, smacking his own forehead with one hand, not believing he'd completely missed what Wheeljack was suggesting. He decided to chalk it up to exhaustion and being entirely too emotionally close to the situation. "Mirage!"

Wheeljack nodded.

"Their signatures shouldn't be all that different," he said with a shrug. His voice took on a note of tired but ironic amusement when he added, "They _are_ brother and sister, after all."

Optimus Prime made a sudden choking noise at that.

"Oh, he's going to _love_ this," he said, chuckling. Then he abruptly sat back in his chair when Ratchet swiftly turned away from Wheeljack and gave Prime a ferocious glare.

"Where is he?" Ratchet growled demandingly at Prime, leaning almost threateningly across the desk that separated them. He didn't care one whit about what Mirage was or was not going to love, nor did he much care for protocol at the moment.

"On Cybertron," Prime replied, unimpressed with Ratchet's urgent ire, blinking as he accessed the information. "Long term intel-gathering assignment. Jazz will know how to reach him."

"Then you need to get Jazz's aft working on that right away," Ratchet ordered brusquely. "We need Mirage back here _yesterday_."

"I'm on it," Prime replied, already stabbing at the controls of the comm console installed in his desktop. At about the same time, Ratchet's own comm beeped at him.

"You're needed, Ratchet," was all that First Aid said over it, and his voice sounded strained.

"Dammit!" Ratchet explosively responded, knowing that First Aid could only be calling about Swoop; he'd told his younger colleague that he didn't want to hear about anything or anyone else. Launching himself out of his chair, he headed for the door, Wheeljack hard on his heels.

"I'll comm you when Jazz has news," Ratchet heard Prime call out as the door slid closed behind him and he began to run for the medbay.

* * *

_**Review Responses! :D**_

_** Shadir: **__It's all coming together according to my insidious plan! Or at least, it's starting to… ;) It's __**far**__ too much fun to torture these two…_

_** mdnytryder: **__I'm glad you're enjoying the story and that the "pair" seems to make sense to you in light of the backstory I gave. And I guess we'll see if your guesses are right… And I'm glad the smex was good! HAH! :D (And on another note, I just now figured out what your name actually says. I was like, "Oh! Midnight Rider! I __**get**__ it!") _

_** Katsuko1978: **__Oh, but that would be far too__** obvious**__, now wouldn't it?__ MWAHAH! But seriously, there is definitely weirdness going on and things will definitely get "interesting times" interesting, indeed. Especially for poor Starscream, bless his little spark. I'm glad you're enjoying, and I hope you'll stick with me. And speaking of Starscream…_

_**Next time:**__ Meanwhile, back at the ranch – I mean, Decepticon Headquarters…_


	7. 5: Persistence of Vision

_**Note:** This chapter was updated 1/5/10, mostly as part of the effort to fix this story's overall narrative voice to make it consistently third-person throughout. There may be minor changes from the original, as well, but nothing plot-significant._

_

* * *

_

_**5: Persistence of Vision **_

Starscream awoke, as was usual of late, fighting the urge to scream. It wasn't a scream of pain or of terror, however. Rather, it was the kind of scream that one generally let loose when one was teetering on the edge of a blinding, all-consuming overload.

He'd been dreaming of _her_. Again. They were heated, fevered dreams, achingly real. They left his body and his mind feeling utterly deprived, gnawingly unsatisfied, his systems running very hot…and there was nothing that he could do about it. He could only lay there, order the computer to lower the temperature dramatically in his quarters, and then wait, panting and shivering feverishly, hoping that it would all subside.

Either that, or he could find someone upon whom to release the tension to which he found himself awakening, whether they wanted him to or not. But he hadn't resorted to that.

Yet.

Starscream sat up on his berth, knowing from experience that the rest of his recharge cycle would elude him, that there was no point in trying to settle down again. Blearily consulting his chronometer, he noted that it had been a mere forty-five minutes since he'd shut down. Sighing, weary in both mind and body, Starscream drew his knees into his chest, folded his forearms on top of them, and then rested his forehead on top of his arms. He stayed in that position for more than a few minutes, working at calming himself. It was more difficult to do so than it had been the previous night, just as it had been more difficult to do so the previous night than it had been the night before that.

It was getting worse. _He_ was getting worse. Quickly. Sounds and sensations from the dream lingered still, even though he was fully awake. He could feel her against him, her teeth gnawing on him, her fingers digging into exquisitely sensitive spots that were tingling at him even now. He could hear her still, too, sighing and snarling and whispering wanton, passionate words directly, so it seemed, into his mind.

"Stop!" Starscream murmured quietly but desperately, shifting position slightly so that he could massage frantic circles into the sides of his head, as if he could somehow drill into it and physically remove whatever it was that was plaguing him. "Stop, stop, stop…" he repeated over and over again, mantra-like, for long minutes as he worked at calming himself.

Slowly, much more slowly than he would have liked, Starscream's mind quieted, his body returning, for now, to its normal state. "Normal," of course, being a relative term; normality had ceased to exist for him the moment that Ratchet had called regarding Swoop, and he was beginning to believe that it would forever elude him now, as if he was existing in some permanently altered state.

Starscream had indulged in extensive research since returning from his encounter with Swoop. He hadn't had the time to do so beforehand, especially because after Ratchet's call he'd quickly lost touch with most of his sanity, drowned as it quickly became in the overwhelming instinctive desire for Swoop. The problem was that he wasn't entirely certain that his sanity had returned intact. Or at all. It should have, so his research told him. He now thoroughly understood even the minutest details of what was known of the nature and purpose of royal imprinting, and he knew that it should have lasted at most a day or two after he had fulfilled his obligation to Swoop. He should no longer be feeling a need to think of her, should no longer be reliving the things that they had done with and to each other, and he _definitely_ shouldn't be feeling a subconscious desire for her that, now, was insidiously starting to bleed over into a conscious desire for her, all against his will.

It was unacceptable. He wanted it to stop. But since what he was experiencing was not normal – at least, nothing like it had ever been recorded, so far as his research went – he had no idea how to _make_ it stop. Nor could he talk to anyone about it. Doing so would require imparting to that other individual information that they couldn't know. He would be gravely endangering not only them but also himself, should he reveal it to anyone. The only individuals that he could conceivably talk to about the situation were Megatron and Soundwave. Neither option appealed in the slightest. So, Starscream was trapped. Well and truly trapped, like a bird in a cage.

A desperate and increasingly insane part of him felt a need to put in an illicit call to Ratchet, to somehow contrive to meet face-to-face with the Autobots' medic. He could actually talk to him about the situation, at least, whereas he couldn't talk to _any_ Decepticon. And maybe Ratchet might have access to information and knowledge databases to which he wasn't privy or that he wasn't even aware existed. Yes, it was a very tempting notion to have a nice, long chat with that particular Autobot. But he hadn't resorted to that.

Yet.

For the moment, all Starscream could do was to attempt to distract himself. He'd tried many means of doing so, but the only thing that had worked so far had been to bait Megatron into an argument that had devolved into some fairly severe physical violence. Starscream hadn't intended this as an attempt to distract himself; it was just that his "condition" had greatly shortened his fuse and significantly reduced the amount of patience he had for his "illustrious" leader. So it was through sheer serendipity that Starscream had learned that pain temporarily eclipsed and then completely silenced for a blessedly long time the thoughts, sensations, and visions that were pounding more and more often through his mind, slowly eating away at what was left of his sanity. The pain and its resulting quiet had been a welcome relief…and it had given him an idea. Now, if he couldn't quiet himself in any other way, he had an experiment all planned out. It was one that didn't involve Megatron but that would, hopefully, achieve an equally satisfying result.

Starscream had decided that a quiet mind, however briefly it remained quiet, was well worth whatever pain he had to inflict upon himself.

Since he had managed to calm himself this time, Starscream didn't have to resort to such lengths. Yet. He was still keyed-up, though. Although exhausted, the result of almost two weeks without a proper recharge cycle, a strange energy crackled through him anyway, leaving him feeling restless. So, as had become his habit, Starscream hauled himself off of his berth and went for a walk.

It was the middle of the stretch of time that the Decepticons has arbitrarily deemed the night cycle, even though it was actually the middle of the afternoon, local time. Few Decepticons were about; those who were awake were either at their duty stations or likely up to clandestine nocturnal activities of various sorts that kept them from clogging the corridors. Still, Starscream passed a few comrades here and there, many of them the same ones that he often passed now on these restless, dead-of-night peregrinations. They no longer seemed surprised to see him prowling the corridors in a somewhat aimless manner. They dipped their heads in respectful acknowledgement, a gesture that he off-handedly acknowledged in return when it occurred to him that he should do so, and then they averted their gazes, going on about their business.

As usual, after about an hour of aimless wandering, trying without much success to calm himself, Starscream found himself on the bridge. Soundwave, the watch commander, seemed thoroughly unsurprised to see him when he planted himself next to his chair in front of the viewscreen; showing up for watch many hours too early had become a recurring trend for Starscream. Soundwave merely turned his head to look up at him as he gazed dully at the viewscreen which, as usual, showed a benign view of the depths of the ocean outside, illuminated only by the light that Headquarters itself generated.

Starscream wasn't seeing the image on the viewscreen, though. Other things were flashing through his mind, his walk obviously not having purged everything even temporarily from his processors. There were images of Swoop, of the expressions on her face when they had been together. There were echoes of the enticing, erotic sounds that she'd made. There were memories of the feel of her small, overheated body firmly pinned beneath his own, and of her fingers scratching and scraping demandingly at him, and of the heights of ecstasy to which they'd repeatedly, almost effortlessly, driven each other.

Starscream had begun to suspect that Swoop was far more devious than he had given her credit for. She was a medic, after all, and perhaps she had done something to him while they'd been together, intimately connected, something that he hadn't noticed because he'd been too otherwise-occupied for his own good. Perhaps she had engineered whatever-it-was such that he'd slowly go insane, if exhaustion and energy deprivation didn't do him in first, thus effectively removing him from the ranks of the Decepticons. It would be an irony indeed if Starscream had refrained from killing Swoop quickly and mercifully only to have her destroy him in this slow and torturous manner.

As it was, Starscream couldn't rest for more than two hours at a stretch. He regarded his recharge berth with growing revulsion more than anything because the dreams were so much more real and solid and deeply disturbing than the maddening phantom echoes of them that plagued his waking hours. And more and more often the mere thought of taking in energon made him want to purge. He avoided it, ignoring now the advisories and warnings that were trickling ever more demandingly into his processors.

Already, Starscream was becoming increasingly distracted and inattentive during his waking hours, no matter how hard he fought to hold himself together. It was a combination of the waking dreams and the exhaustion wrought by a lack of recharge and energon. It was, perhaps, a good thing that Megatron was currently between grand schemes; Starscream had no desire to face down Autobots in his distracted condition. On the other hand, the fact that Megatron was mostly idle at the moment meant that he had liberty to notice that his second-in-command wasn't quite right. He hadn't confronted Starscream directly about it, yet, but Starscream did notice the calculatingly speculative looks that Megatron was leveling at him far more regularly than he liked. Starscream knew that it was only a matter of time before he'd be in his face.

"Conscience," Soundwave suddenly droned from out of nowhere, hauling Starscream out of his thoughts. It was a welcome distraction, actually. Still, Starscream knew that he had to be very careful around Soundwave. At the moment, his mind was relatively quiet, under control. Should that change, he would need to remove himself from Soundwave's vicinity post-haste. There was no need to add more fuel to Megatron's fire, fuel that Soundwave would be only too happy to provide. Now, Starscream regarded Soundwave curiously.

"What?" he asked of the spy.

"Your conscience troubles you," Soundwave answered evenly. His lack of vocal inflection made it difficult to tell whether he was asking a question or simply making an observation. Starscream chose to interpret his words as the latter.

Soundwave was the only other Decepticon besides Megatron who knew about Swoop, having been on the bridge when Ratchet had called. Others had been there, too, but Megatron had calmly turned around and destroyed them all as soon as Ratchet's call had ended, so as to halt the possible spread of rumors. That left Soundwave and Starscream. So Starscream knew now that Soundwave was referring to Swoop and to what he was supposed to have done to her.

"I assure you that my conscience is quite clear, Soundwave," Starscream answered tiredly but firmly. "I did my duty, and I did it gladly."

Which was true; it just wasn't the duty that Megatron had assigned to him. He had instead fulfilled a different duty, perhaps a higher one, even though his motives were selfish. And, indeed, even though he was experiencing some fairly severe weirdness at the moment, Starscream still knew that he'd made the right decision. He did not and would not regret the decision even if the consequences of it ultimately destroyed him.

Soundwave, meanwhile, made a small, noncommittal noise that Starscream wasn't quite sure how to interpret. In fact, he wasn't sure why Soundwave was speaking to him at all about this subject. Was he sympathizing? Or merely digging for information, hoping to catch him off guard, hoping that he'd blab something personal or incriminating that Soundwave could then give to Megatron like a gift? If that was the case, Starscream was determined that Soundwave was out of luck. He didn't trust Soundwave half as far as a squishy could throw him. Even if he was half-insane at the moment, Starscream's guard would never be down around Soundwave.

"It is…surprising," Soundwave was uttering, meanwhile.

"Oh yes," Starscream answered acidly. "It's an utter shock to the system when Starscream actually does what he's told, isn't it?" Even though he hadn't done what he was told. But Soundwave didn't need to know that.

Soundwave just looked at the Seeker levelly.

"Indeed," he intoned.

Starscream snorted in response.

"Damned if I do, damned if I don't," he said resignedly. It was the story of his life.

"Indeed," Soundwave repeated, and Starscream could have sworn that there was a note of amusement in his otherwise fathomless voice.

"Shut up," Starscream growled.

And then he stomped off to one of the other stations on the bridge, all of which were unoccupied at this time of the night watch. His own watch didn't start for another three hours yet and, for lack of anything better to do, he decided to use those hours to dig further through ancient records and databases. Again. He knew that it was likely a fruitless endeavor, that there wasn't any information in the databases that he had not already read a hundred times. But he had hope that the activity would keep the hallucinations at bay.

For a little while, at least.

* * *

_Ahhhh, the things I put poor Starscream through… Can't leave the poor guy alone, apparently…_

_For interested readers, regarding the title of the chapter: "Persistence of vision" is, so it's hypothesized, what allows you to have uninterrupted vision even during the time that passes while you blink your eyes. Essentially, your retina fills in the "hole" for you. So there's your trivia for the day. ;)_

_**Review replies! :D**_

_**Starfire201: **__ Yeah, well, Mirage is described canonically as "noble," so…I just bumped him up a bit, I guess. There's another royal running around, too. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out who he is, if you think about it and know your G1 cartoon details, but he doesn't have much effect on this story. If I write the others that are in my head, though, he most definitely will have a huge effect… Anyway, while this is an AU story, I imagine it running very closely parallel to the canon universe, so I'm trying to keep canon elements in here, to the extent possible, to keep readers "grounded." And hey, a Dinobot sibling is what Mirage gets for me not liking him very much. *laughs* Hope he likes the taste of humble pie! But he should be thankful that I'm not overly fond of him because I'm __**really**__ brutal to the ones I do like a lot, like Starscream! HAH! And yeah, Starscream's little secret will come out eventually, as secrets have a habit of doing, but not __**quite**__ yet…_

_**Jenn**__: I'm glad the POV-switching didn't bother you. I guess I'm a bit of a purist/extremist on the subject; in my mind, it should be all one way or the other, not a mash of the two. But at least I've kept the switches segregated into chapters, so it's not as bad as it could be, I suppose. I'm glad that you're liking the pair as well (I've grown kind of fond of them, myself, God help me. *headdesk*), and I hope you'll stick with the story. _

_**Next time:**__ Mirage ponders. And Swoop…Well, let's not give things away, eh? _


	8. 6: Rebirth

_GAH! I'm (much) later than I wanted to be with this! I'm __**so**__ sorry! When I got back into town last week…life happened, and I had to deal with it. Didn't leave me much computering time. Plus, I felt a bit of a need to tinker with this chapter and the next two a bit anyway, so…Yeah._

_Anyway…Yippee, more 3__rd__ person! Mirage decided to pretty much take over this chapter. I don't know why because, in general, he's not my most favorite of characters. Frankly, I blame Ayngel and Mirage Shinkiro for making me think about him at all… So, if you guys are reading this thing…uh, thanks! …I think… ;) In any case, Mirage has a bit of a role to play in this story, and he'll have a large role if I decide to write more in this AU, so I felt that I needed a bit of his perspective here, so here it is.  
_

_Thanks as always to the watchers and favers! Review replies are below._

_

* * *

  
_

The lights in the room were dimmed, but Swoop's new body gleamed nevertheless, all shiny newness even in the wan lighting. Mirage, lost in thought, was absently circling the berth upon which it was laid out, waiting like Frankenstein's monster to be brought to life. The body was beautiful, he had to admit, one fit for a queen. It was all narrow, slightly rounded-off limbs in hues of deep blue, silver, and gold with touches of red here and there: the Autobot symbol, the red crosses on the outsides of her shoulders that marked her as a medic. Her wings, golden now instead of silver, would be flexible and gracefully back-curved when fully extended, gently tapering to long, delicate points, the seams along which they folded creating an intricate pattern across their width. Small, decorative designs in shimmering gold that matched the wings and that accented the blue and silver surrounding them looped along the body here and there. Such decoration was something that had gone out of fashion long ago, seen as meaningless frivolity in a time of war, but it had been quite common before the war, before his…their mother's death, and Mirage thought it fitting now, for Swoop.

Mirage had to admit that even though he instinctively resisted the idea of a Dinobot having refined tastes and talent, Sludge did indeed have an eye not only for aesthetics and beauty, but he also apparently harbored not a little sentimentality and had quite obviously done some research: Some of the glyphs that trailed along Swoop's new body were the very same ones that had adorned his…their…mother. The result was a reflection, perhaps, both of the parent that Mirage had lost and that Swoop had never really known as well as of the hope that Swoop now represented for their future.

If, of course, she survived the next few hours. And that, if Ratchet's worry-camouflaging grousing and Wheeljack's outright manic fretting were any indication, was apparently not an entirely sure thing.

Mirage wasn't sure how he felt about that. He wasn't sure about how he felt about Swoop in general. He'd come back – reluctantly – to Earth. He'd given serious consideration to the notion of refusing to do so, instinctively bristling as always at being ordered about by a mere civil, but in the end he'd been deeply curious, and the curiosity eventually won out. Jazz had told him that something huge had happened and that he was needed, but he wouldn't say precisely what had happened or why he, specifically, had been needed. Jazz would only tell him that he'd be briefed upon his arrival.

Mirage hadn't expected to be briefed by Ratchet, of all individuals, and he certainly hadn't at all expected what Ratchet had told him in typical Ratchet fashion: Bluntly, bordering on tactlessly. He wasn't one to mince words, particularly not when he was as exhausted as he obviously was. The medic's honest and blunt straight-forwardness was a trait that, in general, Mirage perversely appreciated, accustomed as he used to be to delicate, evasive deference whenever anyone had had to impart to him bad or upsetting news. When it came to the news about Swoop, though, Mirage almost wished that it had been delivered with just a bit of mincing.

It occurred to Mirage that his life being upended and then abruptly veering off in a completely different and unexpected direction was something of a disturbing trend, but this time it had happened in a way that was almost more difficult to deal with than the previous upheaval. When his family, his whole _society_, had been destroyed, Mirage had known exactly what to feel in response. Rage, sadness, and not a little guilt that he he'd been half-way around the planet had dominated his reaction. He'd spent many years agonizing about what had happened, certain that he might have been able to do something about the situation had he only been there. Guilt and a need for retribution of some sort was what had eventually driven him to join the Autobot cause. He hadn't been able to do anything for his family, but at least the Autobots were dedicated to thwarting the individual who had done the damage to them. It was a small penance, but a penance nonetheless. If nothing else, it had been a place to start.

But in this case, Mirage really didn't have the luxury of knowing how to react to the situation. He didn't know what he was supposed to feel, what he was supposed to think. He wasn't even sure, really, that all of Ratchet's theorizing about Swoop was at all correct. So the only thing that Mirage felt now was surprised confusion. He had resigned himself to being alone in the universe but for one loathsome other. For thousands of years, he'd considered himself truly the last of his breed…except that he apparently wasn't. Not anymore. In fact, if Ratchet was right, he hadn't been alone all along, but Mirage hadn't quite assimilated that notion yet, even though he'd been back on Earth and fully informed about the situation for almost a week now.

During that week, events had progressed quickly. Once Ratchet and Wheeljack had gleaned from Mirage whatever the information was that they'd needed, Swoop's new body had been hurriedly constructed, in a matter of half a day. It had required a group effort much like that which had been required when she'd first been constructed. Such haste had been necessary because her condition had begun deteriorating rapidly, systems shutting down left and right such that Ratchet and the other medics had been barely able to keep one step ahead of them until, now, her vital systems had shut down and she was entirely dependent on outside equipment to keep her alive. At any moment, Mirage knew, the medics would come barreling through the door with Swoop, to accomplish her transplantation. It was an extremely risky procedure, given her condition, but it was clear that there was no other choice.

As if on cue, the doors to the room parted and Ratchet, Wheeljack, and a few assistants burst through it, pushing a berth bearing Swoop and toting the equipment that, at the moment, was all that was keeping her alive. Mirage, without being told, scuttled away from the berth containing Swoop's new body and pressed himself against a convenient wall. Part of him insisted that he should leave, that he'd be in the way, and that, really, this wasn't something that he wanted to see at all. The rest of him, though, insisted that he should stay, that he should be there for the sister that he hadn't known that he had until a week ago, that he should witness her phoenix-like rebirth…or her death. In the end, since none of the medics insisted that he leave, Mirage stayed where he was, pressed against the wall, settling in as best he could to observe.

Given the amount of time and effort that had led up to it, the actual transplantation procedure seemed at first to progress easily and didn't seem very complicated. Then again, Ratchet always made even the most complex of procedures seem absurdly effortless, as if just anyone could do what he did. Which, of course, could not have been farther from the truth.

As it was, things went well…at the start. Mirage couldn't see much of anything that went on from his vantage point, since there were milling medics between him and Swoop's berth, but when he heard the monitors and the equipment that had been sustaining Swoop's body shut down with a fading whine, he knew that Swoop had been disconnected from her body. Then there was a flurry of movement as medics shifted quickly but carefully out of Ratchet's way. As they moved in front of him, Mirage caught a glimpse of Swoop's spark chamber cradled protectively in the medic's hands. Her spark was swollen, straining at the protective arms that encased it, just barely beginning the process of physical division, and it was dimly glowing a dull, sickly shade of yellow.

Mirage winced at it, both because of the sickliness of its color that should have been a been a mellow, beautifully shimmering gold, but also because, as he felt his own spark jolt and then shift and flutter in faint recognition, it rammed home the fact that Ratchet was right about who Swoop really was. In that moment, Mirage knew that Swoop wasn't a Dinobot who'd somehow, miraculously, managed to mutate into a queen in their hour of need, as some part of him had absurdly been hoping was the case. In that moment, Mirage knew that Swoop was, indeed, his sister and that her status, other than the fact that she still existed at all after Megatron's massacre, was not miraculous but simply…as it should be.

Mirage sighed, suddenly overwhelmed by…something. Several somethings. Relief was in there, certainly. Happiness that, if Swoop survived, his long, solitary existence really was over. But there was also unease and uncertainty. And guilt, as he recalled things that he'd said about Swoop, some of them directly to her face. Mirage closed his eyes then and rested the back of his head wearily against the wall behind him as he contemplated how he would now regard Swoop, how he would treat her, what he would say to her…until monitors started blaring again, singing the wailing song of a spark in deep distress.

The sound catapulted Mirage out of his reverie, and his entire body jerked forward a few steps, completely on impulse. The only thing that stopped him from stumbling all the way over to Swoop's side was a warning glare from Ratchet as he frantically made adjustments to parts of Swoop's innards that Mirage couldn't see and the other medics pumped various fluids and, likely, drugs into the lines that were feeding her new body.

"Wheeljack!" the medic barked suddenly.

"Working on it," the engineer tersely answered as he frantically typed code into the console in front of him, which was linked to one of Swoop's interface ports so that Wheeljack could access her core programming.

Wheeljack was adjusting on the fly the "patches" that he'd coded years ago, when Swoop had first been created, the very patches that bypassed the damaged portions of Swoop's spark and that subsequently allowed her to be transplanted as an unexpected by-product. Mirage dimly recalled Wheeljack saying something about not knowing exactly what code adjustments, if any, would be required until Swoop's spark began trying to interface with her new body. And now it was a race against time, as monitors blared dire warnings and the medics, Ratchet included, did their level best not to glare urgently at the frantically-typing engineer. Wheeljack was all that stood now between Swoop and death.

After a minute or so, during which Mirage had begun to pace around his small corner of the room, Ratchet gave the monitors a concerned and very displeased look and then urgently growled at Wheeljack, "Work faster."  
"Shut up," Wheeljack ground out in response, not taking his eyes off of the screen in front of him. Then, moments later, he mashed an unseen key on the console with urgent finality and then loudly announced, "There!"

At exactly the same moment, the monitors' warnings crescendoed to a keening climax, becoming a constant whine instead of frantic, rhythmic beeping, and Swoop's body heaved an almighty jerk, nearly leaping off the berth before going utterly still. The monitors continued to whine for a moment that seemed to go on forever…but then, slowly, they began to settle into less-frantic beeping. Indicators that had been glowing an angry, distressed red slowly muted to yellow and then to mellow green.

"She's stabilizing," Ratchet announced, just loudly enough to be heard over the monitors, the relief in his voice intense and obvious, mirroring the feelings of everyone in the room.

Wheeljack flopped back in his seat and cast a deeply thankful look at the ceiling. Then he turned a weary gaze on Ratchet and asked the medic if he wanted to flip a coin to see who'd go talk to Optimus. Ratchet grimaced and muttered something about waiting to make sure that Swoop was really all right first and that maybe that might possibly take five days. Wheeljack grunted tiredly in amused agreement. Mirage, meanwhile, slumped against the wall behind him, sinking down against it until his rear met the floor. Folding his arms over his bent knees, he rested his forehead wearily on them, not realizing until just that moment how tired he was, how little he'd rested in the week since his return to Earth. He stayed in that position, lost in his own thoughts, for he knew not how long, until noise prompted him to shift his attention back to what was going on around him again.

He blinked blearily at Swoop's berth, saw that Wheeljack and Ratchet were leaning intently over her. It took Mirage a moment to realize that they were talking to her and she to them. The latter took Mirage an extra moment to recognize because she sounded…different. It dawned on him that she now sounded almost exactly like their mother, and he had to fight to suppress a shudder. All of it, everything, was quickly becoming too much to deal with too soon. Memories that he'd initially buried in order to preserve his sanity in the wake of the massacre were surfacing, creeping all unwelcome into the forefront of his thoughts. Memories were creeping in, too, of the aftermath of the massacre, when he'd come home and seen the devastation…the bodies, even of the little ones… Now, hearing Swoop's voice, the memories and everything else became overwhelming.

Mirage sat on the floor, shuddering involuntarily but uncontrollably, staring over at Swoop, listening to what she and Wheeljack and Ratchet were saying without really hearing the words, taking in the varying expressions that passed in rapid succession over Swoop's face. And then, suddenly, an undeniable urge to escape overtook him, and he jerked to his feet. The sound of his back scraping against the wall behind him as he stood drew the sudden attention of everyone in the room, all eyes suddenly fixed on him. But Mirage saw only Swoop. Their gazes locked together, gold to gold.

The look on Swoop's face was, unsurprisingly, one of vast confusion; Mirage had vaguely heard Ratchet bombarding her with a vast quantity of bluntly-delivered information, answering the multitude of dazed and bewildered questions that had begun to spew out of her as soon as she had regained consciousness. All of it was no doubt overwhelming for her, perhaps even more overwhelming than it was for Mirage. And on top of that, she'd awakened to find herself in a new body, which Mirage had always imagined would be excessively disorienting; he was glad, in a way, that he'd never have to experience it. Swoop's reeling expression as her gaze met Mirage's reflected all of this.

But there was also a touch of something that was perhaps horror in her expression, as Swoop stared mutely at Mirage. Mirage supposed that he should have expected it, that he'd even earned it, but it still wasn't something that he wanted to deal with at the moment, on top of everything else.

So, turning his back on Swoop, Mirage stumbled gracelessly toward the doors, and he sighed in relief as they slid closed behind him. He knew that he couldn't avoid her – his sister – forever…but he could avoid her for now, at least until he could collect himself, until he could rein in the memories and emotions that were assaulting him. Still, he could feel Swoop's golden gaze burning into his back as he left, and he felt like the worst of cowards. He knew that, soon, he and Swoop would need to have a talk. Likely, a very long one. But that wasn't going to happen right now. Right now, Mirage chose to escape, to hide.

It was, he bitterly realized, what he did best.

* * *

_**  
**__**Review replies!**_

_**HitokiriKurisuta**__**: **__Yeah, I had a looooooooooong time ago thought about writing a version of this basic story that wasn't AU and that was 'slash.' This pair's been haunting me __**forever**__. But I never did it. And then this other "cultural" concept bashed me in the head, and I wanted to explore it – specifically, I wanted to explore a little bit the nature of gender with TFs as I now see it – and so…AU it was. I'm glad that you're liking the concept and the pairing and hope that you'll see this through now that I'm hopefully back on track._

_**Carmilla DeWinter: **__You just want to give Puff a big ol' hug, don't you? Admit it! Or maybe that's just me… ;) Glad you approve of the crack; it's easy to get immersed in writing it, too. Just ask my other stories. *rolls eyes*_

_**Shadir: **__Hee hee… I think you'll have to stand in a long line of ladies (and maybe a few gentlemen! ;) ) wanting to help Starscream with his "little problem." :D_

_**Starfire201: **__Ah, you are well-versed in my Starscream-torturing ways, then. HAH! :D He gets off lighter in this story, though. Well…mostly, anyway. ;)_

_And Mirage…Well, in the long run, I'm actually being nice to Mirage. So I'm nice to the characters I don't particularly like and brutal to the ones I really like. Twisted? Me? Well, actually, I'm not nice to ALL the characters I don't like. Just Mirage, apparently. Because I __**never**__ treat Megatron well. *laughs* Speaking of which…_

_Yeah, I haven't made it really clear (yet?), but this Megatron is…a little different. His position has made him a bit wacko, even more wacko than the 'toon portrays him. It's something that I'll address more in another story, if I write more of them. Here, it's kind of background-y because I want to keep the focus in this story on the "leads" as much as I can. Suffice it to say that, usually, I see him as more patient but in an always-calculating sort of way, like he generally is in the 'toon. This Megatron, though, is less patient, more hair-trigger. Essentially, he's been on a long, downward spiral from an idealistic and somewhat noble starting point long ago, and he's becoming quite the paranoid. So, he'll tend to act more on impulse, particularly so when it comes to securing and guarding his own position. A few deaths can be swept under the carpet and are completely justified, in his mind. And, in light of this, the other Decepticons have come to expect it as well. Not that they're __**happy**__ about it, mind you; they're just used to it. _

_**Next time: **__Starscream and pressure do not go particularly well together. Particularly when Starscream is taking a bit of a walk on the demented side…_


	9. 7: Fight or Flight

_**Note:** This chapter was updated 1/5/10, mostly as part of the effort to fix this story's overall narrative voice to make it consistently third-person throughout. There may be minor changes from the original, as well, but nothing plot-significant._

_

* * *

_

_**7: Fight or Flight**_

Sounds floated and flitted around Starscream, an impenetrable and incomprehensible miasma that weighed on him in exactly the way that a miasma should not weigh on anyone. Strange, but true. The sounds that comprised this weighty miasma may or may not have been words. No, that wasn't entirely true. Starscream knew that they were in fact words, although they sounded like so much gibberish to him. Still, he knew that they were words to which he was supposed to be paying attention. They were words that were, theoretically, important. Words said at mission briefings were generally important.

Except that they weren't important, not to Starscream. They might once have been important, but not anymore. The individual saying the words might once have been important, too, but not anymore. Nothing was nearly as important as desperately clinging to the one vanishingly-small sliver of sanity that Starscream still had left in his possession but that, even now, was slowly, inexorably slipping from his grasp, hour by hour, minute by minute.

Starscream was no longer entirely certain that he was awake at any given moment in time. He was no longer certain that he was _ever_, in fact, awake, that he wasn't simply lingering in some hallucination-plagued coma somewhere, entirely divorced from reality. Whatever reality was, of course; it wasn't as if he could remember anymore. Inflicting massive amounts of pain on himself no longer had any effect. Even channeling concentrated bursts of energy directly into his spark, for all that it was excruciatingly painful – He could now sympathize with _her_ – hadn't stopped the hallucinations even for a few minutes. _And_ it also hadn't killed him. The glorious release of death had indeed been Starscream's goal the first time he'd thought of attempting that particular tactic, as he'd gathered his courage and followed through with his plan…and afterwards he had been utterly horrified to discover that he still existed. Multiple reiterations of the experiment only yielded the same results: It appeared that he could do nothing _but_ exist, despite his best efforts to remove himself from the universe.

The corner of Starscream's mind that housed the spark of a scientist wanted desperately to chew on the question of why in the universe he was still alive, why something that by all rights should have quite effectively destroyed him somehow…hadn't. But that part of him was almost entirely drowned out by _her _now. Everything was drowned out by her. She was a constant. _The_ constant. Starscream was hyperaware of her all the time, every nanosecond of every day. He knew exactly where she was relative to his own position, to the nanometer, at any given moment. Sometimes, he fancied that he could even tell what she was doing or saying or even thinking. She insistently and irresistibly pulled at him like gravity, as if she had become a voracious, all-consuming black hole, the event horizon of which he'd crossed a month ago now. So now there was just a slow, inevitable degeneration until, with brutal mercy, she finally crushed him.

But until that blessed, blessed moment arrived, she merely plagued Starscream, whispering a constant litany in his mind and haunting every one of his senses. He felt her, tasted her, heard her, smelled her, saw her. _Everywhere_. All the time. For all that she was thousands of kilometers away, she was at times as present and as tangible to Starscream as the chair in which he was currently sitting, and there was no escaping her. There was nowhere that he could hide from her because she – or at least the need for her, the want of her – had become an integral part of him. Yet, she was forever dancing out of reach and laughing at him while she did so. Untouchable. So close and yet so very, _very_ far away…

A nudge to Starscream's flank brought his wandering, distracted attention back to semi-coherence, semi-awareness. The nudge had come from Thundercracker, of course. He was seated placidly next to Starscream, and he was surreptitiously giving him the look that Starscream had christened simply That Look again, that frighteningly penetrating look of his that, until very recently, Starscream hadn't realized was quite so penetrating, quite so damned perceptive. He was highly aware of that now, though; it was as if Thundercracker could see into his very spark and instantly glean all of its secrets. Starscream supposed that this talent of Thundercracker's was a natural outcome of being the so-called quiet one, the imperturbable buffer who sat squarely and immovably between Skywarp and Starscream and between the three of them and the rest of the Decepticons. He was one of the few individuals in the Decepticon ranks who knew much but said very little. He was like Soundwave that way. Only much less scary. And with a better voice.

And he knew that something was up with Starscream, Thundercracker did. Starscream acknowledged that, likely, Thundercracker wasn't the only one who knew this, for he was certain that it had to be blazingly obvious even to the morons that surrounded him. But Starscream figured that Thundercracker was likely the only one who cared, or at least that he was likely the only one who wasn't spending all of his free time trying to figure out how to use Starscream's current, deeply addled mental state against him. Thundercracker was watching him closely, Starscream knew, but for some perverse reason Thundercracker's watching was comforting rather than threatening. Starscream felt as if he had to watch his own back less because Thundercracker was already watching it, as he always did. Even when he grumbled about it, as he always did.

Over the past couple of weeks, Starscream had, in desolate, despairing moments of semi-sane quasi-clarity, seriously considered the notion of confiding in Thundercracker. Since his wingmate was a watcher, he also tended to be a good listener, and if one could get Thundercracker to say _anything_ at all, one quickly came to realize and indeed to appreciate the fact that he had an intelligence that was almost as penetrating as the looks that he could give. He was, therefore, a good one with whom to bounce around ideas, as Starscream knew somewhere, vaguely, that he had done on occasion in the past.

But in this case, confiding in Thundercracker would be dangerous. For both of them, naturally, but more so for Thundercracker because it was rather likely that he wanted to continue to live. But that wasn't really what had stopped Starscream from blabbing everything to his wingmate. No, in the end the thing that had stayed his hand was that, often, what was told to Thundercracker ended up being found out by Skywarp. And what Skywarp found out had a curious habit of being blabbed to absolutely everyone. And that just wouldn't be good. So, Starscream continued to suffer alone, and poor Thundercracker would just have to do with giving him speculative looks. And timely nudges, when prudent.

Prompted by this latest nudge from his curiously faithful wingmate, Starscream looked up from his rapt and very detailed inspection of the scratched tabletop in front of him to find himself eye-to-eye with a very disgruntled-looking and apparently expectant Megatron. He spouted some gibberish. At least, it sounded like so much gibberish to Starscream, although he was certain that, in the reality from which he was almost wholly disconnected, Megatron had said perfectly coherent words, no doubt a demand for an explanation for his inattentiveness or something of that sort. But it didn't matter. Because for some reason, the look on Megatron's face sparked in Starscream only vast and completely inappropriate amusement, and before he knew quite what was happening, he was laughing. Loudly.

It was exactly the wrong thing to do. Dimly, as if from far, far away, Starscream heard Megatron emit Enraged Noise #847 in his repertoire of approximately a thousand distinctly different enraged noises. Number 847 was a particular bad one, one that had always boded very ill for Starscream. In fact, it was one that, now that he thought about it, Megatron reserved pretty much _solely_ for him. Perversely, now, it only made him laugh harder.

Moments later, there was, of a sudden, a flurry of intense movement that erupted all around Starscream, as Decepticons barreled _en masse_ for the exit, as if they were a flock of birds and someone had spooked them. Whether they left because they had been so ordered or merely because they didn't want to be caught in the crossfire, Starscream didn't know. Or much care, really. The only individual who didn't immediately leave was, perhaps not entirely unsurprisingly, Thundercracker. The blue Seeker stood up, but he otherwise didn't move, his fists clenching and unclenching indecisively, his gaze nervously flitting from Megatron to Starscream, back and forth. Starscream almost had to admire his foolish courage in the face of Megatron's displeasure, but in the end, he jerked his head toward the door, silently indicating to Thundercracker that he, too, should leave. Thundercracker frowned down at him, clearly not liking the idea of leaving Starscream alone to face Megatron's wrath, but in the end he behaved like a proper Decepticon for once in his life and saved his own hide, heading for the door. But he did make it a point to do so in a slow, calm, collected, and decidedly reluctant manner, sending a clear message that Starscream was certain that he would pay for in some manner, later. Thundercracker gave Starscream one last reproachful look over his shoulder before leaving.

Once the doors slid closed in Thundercracker's wake, Megatron turned back to Starscream. He'd gathered his few remaining wits by then, quieting himself and trying to push away the noise in his mind so that he could concentrate on Megatron, so that he could hear and understand whatever he might say. Megatron had calmed himself as well. At least, he had done so on the surface; one rarely knew what was boiling in him just under the surface until it came spewing out of him in all its glory. For a long moment, though, Megatron seemed content simply to stare at Starscream appraisingly, eyes narrowed and glowing dangerously. The moment seemed to stretch on forever before he said anything. And while Megatron stared, Starscream slowly, unthreateningly, got to his feet, determined to keep the table between himself and his leader. His mind was hazy, cloudy, and he wasn't entirely present, but enough of him was there to comprehend the notion that he might need to move, and quickly, in the very near future. Best to be prepared.

Slowly, Megatron folded his arms over his broad chest, the room's pale lighting seeming to accent the huge fusion cannon mounted on his forearm. And then he spoke, his voice deceptively quiet. When Megatron went quiet, Starscream knew that he needed to be on high alert, and that was somewhat difficult at the moment, as distracted as he was.

"What," Megatron asked, almost softly, "is the matter with you, Starscream?"

Starscream hesitated before he answered, kept hesitating for as long as he thought he could get away with it. In his addled mind, he was trying to decide how best to answer Megatron's very simple question. In the end, he decided to try something entirely new: The truth. Or at least a slightly modified version thereof. The truth was simple, and simple was just about all that Starscream could handle, at the moment. This was the level to which he, always a consummate master of weaving a complex web of deceit and lies, had been reduced. It was an irony that was not lost upon him.

"Her," Starscream muttered quietly, his voice shaking in a very pathetic sort of way. Even as he said the word, he could hear her laughing at him in his mind, and he had to fight hard to resist the urge to tell her, aloud and indignantly, to shut up.

At that, Megatron stared at Starscream for a long beat…and then _he_ laughed. Long and hard. It wasn't a pleasant sound at all.

"So Soundwave wins that bet," Megatron announced to no one, and when Starscream just gave him a quizzical look in response, he added, "Tell me, were you stupid enough not to…take care of her…before you killed her, then?" he asked. "Because you should be over this by now, Starscream. It's been…what? A month?"

"You think I don't know that?" Starscream growled peevishly at him. "You think I _want_ to be like this?"

"Knowing you as I do, Starscream," Megatron barked with a humorless laugh, "it wouldn't surprise me if you did." At that, Starscream glared at him, but Megatron didn't respond, his expression instead turning thoughtful and speculative. "Still, I need you…not crazy. I need you awake and alert. Since she's dead – She_ is_ dead, yes?" he asked, nonchalantly interrupting himself, and there was suddenly a knife in his voice.

Starscream regarded Megatron squarely, locking their gazes, and unflinchingly lied, "Of course."

Megatron nodded and continued, "Since she's dead, perhaps you should consider…someone else. It might not work…or it might work quite well. And if I'm not mistaken, Thundercracker seemed willing enough just a…"

Megatron's voice trailed off as the conference room's doors slid quietly but unexpectedly apart and Soundwave strode with his customary aplomb through them. He gave Starscream a long and, so it seemed, deeply speculative look, and the look froze him, sent shivers dancing through his frame as dread suddenly and completely consumed him.

Without pausing even for half a beat, Soundwave strode over to the controls of the room's currently-inactive vidscreen. Almost nonchalantly, he dropped the cassette form of one of his minions into the console, and the vidscreen came immediately to life, immediately began to display the images that whichever of the cassettes it was had recorded. Soundwave gave Megatron a look that was nothing if not smug, and then he turned an even more smug – if that was even possible – look on Starscream.

Because, of course, the cassette contained footage of her. And according to the date stamp, that footage had been recorded a mere two hours ago.

Starscream's innards lurched at the sight of Swoop, his gaze riveted to the vidscreen as memories of their encounter immediately began to flood his mind and senses, effectively shunting aside the warnings about the extreme danger that he knew that he was in now. For a long moment, though, no one moved. No one made a sound. Not Starscream, not Megatron, not Soundwave; all three of them simply stared at the image on the screen, watching Swoop as she glided and banked gracefully on the screen. For some bizarre reason, Starscream fleetingly wondered whether the Autobots had actually let her out of her cage or if she'd managed to sneak out. She had to be near term now, so he couldn't imagine the former happening…

It also occurred to Starscream that Swoop looked completely different now, for some reason. Her form was sleek, stylized, and streamlined where once it had been boxy, primitive, and somewhat clumsy. Her color scheme was altered in a most pleasing fashion, too, now all dark blue, bright silver, and majestically-shimmering gold that sparkled dazzlingly where it caught the brilliant sunlight. Her coloration was reminiscent of Soundwave's now, actually, which Starscream found briefly amusing. Except that she, of course, was _much_ prettier than Soundwave was.

But Swoop didn't, unfortunately for Starscream, look different enough that Megatron wasn't instantly aware of who, exactly, she was. And _Starscream_ certainly knew who she was. Even though she was just an image on a vidscreen, she called to him stridently, like a siren from out of human myth, and he found himself taking several involuntary steps toward the vidscreen – and therefore toward Megatron. He was utterly mesmerized by just an image of her; he felt as if, somehow, he could simply reach into the screen and pull her to him and then blissfully devour her.

But then slowly, ever so slowly, _dangerously_ slowly, Megatron turned to Starscream, and Starscream turned his head to look at Megatron. The look on Megatron's face was indecipherable for a moment before it went ice cold, utterly devoid of any emotion whatsoever. It was his most dangerous not-expression, one that Starscream remembered well; he had seen it for the first time moments before Megatron had destroyed the queen, and he had, so far as he could remember, never seen it since…until now.

"Well," Megatron drawled, his voice lethally quiet, "no wonder she still plagues you, Starscream."

What happened next was something of a blur. Starscream had thought that he was suicidal, that he would welcome death however it chose to claim him because he'd convinced himself that death was infinitely preferable to raving, irretrievable lunacy. But he'd been wrong. There was still, somewhere within him, something that was clinging desperately to the idea of self-preservation, of staying alive at all costs. The instinct had always been particularly strong in Starscream, and it had more than a few times kept him alive and kicking when by all rights he should have been destroyed. As a side effect, it had also earned him a reputation for cowardice, but he'd come to accept that status over the years, even in some ways to embrace it. He'd realized, once all the fairytale illusions and ideals had been pushed aside by the grim reality of war, that cowards stayed alive while the foolishly brave didn't, and he had long ago decided that he preferred remaining a living coward to becoming a dead hero.

Self-sacrifice was entirely not in Starscream's nature. Not for anything. Not for any_one_.

And the self-preservation instinct was apparently still there, strong as ever in the face of the prospect of death – or worse – at Megatron's hands. Long ago, as the once-trusting relationship between the two of them had slowly frayed and tattered beyond repair, to the point that Starscream was keenly aware that Megatron now tolerated his continued existence only because his abilities were valuable, Starscream had vowed to himself that he would never give Megatron the satisfaction of destroying him, should it ever come to pass that Megatron's abhorrence of him overcame his usefulness to him. It had meant eternally walking a very fine line, annoying Megatron for his own amusement but not too much. Betraying his "trust," but not too much. Poking carefully at limits, stretching boundaries to within millimeters of breaking them but never actually breaking them. Starscream knew all the particulars of those limits, where it was safe to tread and where it wasn't. He understood his limits well. And when he'd decided to let _her_ live, he had been very aware that he had made a decision that completely and irrevocably shattered those limits. Starscream had simply decided that, despite any future consequences, the possible future benefits were worth it.

Of course, that was _before_ she had started driving him out of his mind…

But now, somewhat sooner than he'd expected, Megatron had discovered that Starscream had utterly and willfully overstepped a boundary that had always existed, unspoken, between them: He could push Megatron so far but no farther before he would lethally retaliate. So, the moment had finally arrived when he had outlived his usefulness to Megatron, when treachery and betrayal had finally overshadowed talent. He knew it deep down in the core of his spark. And he'd thought that he would welcome it, that he would view this moment as nothing but a release from his burdens. No more walking fine lines. No more games. No more insanity. No more her. No more…_anything_. Just the peace of oblivion. Yet, when squarely faced with the prospect of death at Megatron's hands, right there and right then, Starscream found the concept still to be unbearable, abhorrent on a very deep and very primal level. He discovered a strong desire to prevent Megatron, specifically, from killing him.

"Fight or flight" was a universal concept. Pushed to a limit, faced with destruction, one decided in a split-second which of the two possible courses of action one was going to follow. In Starscream's experience, the foolishly heroic – and the plain old foolish – always chose to fight, and often they died in their attempt to be nobly heroic. Cowards like Starscream, on the other hand, always chose to flee, but this meant that they lived to fight or flee another day, which to Starscream had always seemed infinitely preferable. So here he was, making the choice again, and not surprisingly he made the habitual one.

As a warrior, Starscream's body considered weapons systems vital, so they still had full power at the cost of denying certain other systems that any non-warrior would consider far more vital than weaponry. So for perhaps the first time in his life, Starscream found himself appreciating the skewed physical priorities of his caste. It meant that even in his weakened state, he could launch every weapon at his disposal at Megatron. He had no illusions of destroying Megatron, of course; he sought simply to create some buffering distance between them as well as a distraction. And then, quite literally, Starscream flew; it was faster than running. He transformed, razed the bulkhead with laser fire, and then escaped through the ruins of it into the corridor outside, artfully dodging enraged fusion cannon blasts as he went. It took skill, focus, and concentration to navigate the corridors of Headquarters while in flight, and skill Starscream had, in abundance. Focus and concentration rose to the occasion out of necessity, in the face of the very real possibility of his own death, so suddenly unwanted.

Starscream knew that he needed to escape, and to do that, he knew, suddenly, exactly where he needed to go. The docking tower was the obvious choice and was therefore not an option. But there was another way out of Decepticon Headquarters, one that not many thought about, but one of which Starscream, forever walking that fine line between Megatron's tolerance and a painful, humiliating death, was keenly aware.

What had eventually become the main part of Decepticon Headquarters had once been a spacegoing vessel. As such, it had emergency escape pods. The pods themselves had been cannibalized for parts long ago…but the launch tubes were still there, completely intact. Lowering protective force fields and opening up all of the tubes at once, scattered as they were throughout various levels of Headquarters, would almost entirely flood the main part of the base very quickly, which would be a _very_ good diversion. And once the tubes were open, Starscream had only to hop into one of them, endure a relatively short "flight" through water, and then there would be freedom. Of a sort, at least.

So instead of heading up toward the topside of Headquarters, where the docking bay was situated and where, no doubt, there would be a welcoming committee waiting for him, Starscream headed instead for the ship's bowels, its very underbelly. Down there was one of the three auxiliary control rooms, from which he knew that he could open all of the escape pods' launch tubes. And just down the corridor from there was a tube that was his ticket out of there.

He encountered few individuals on his way, and all of those that he did encounter he incapacitated – permanently or not, he didn't know – so as not to have his position or intended destination reported too quickly. Alarms blared, Megatron's enraged voice boomed over the comm, and confusion generally reigned, but Starscream was in short order ensconced, unharrassed, in the auxiliary control room that was his destination. Once there, he immediately communed with the computers and quickly ordered them to systematically open the launch tubes, blowing their physical hatches and simultaneously lowering the force fields that were an additional level of protection against someone doing exactly what he was doing: flooding Headquarters. He left the tube through which he intended to escape for last.

As Starscream worked, the voices over the comm. became less and less concerned with him and more and more concerned with the rising floodwaters and collateral damage, and he allowed himself a smirk, satisfied with his handiwork. His fellow Decepticons would have their hands full for quite a while, indeed, with hopefully not a thought to spare for him.

And then, very shortly, once all of the comm squawkings were all about water and the disgusting things that were coming in with it, it was time to go. Rising from his seat, Starscream headed for the door and poked his head cautiously out of it, glancing up and down the corridor. No one was about, and the corridor was bathed in dim red emergency lighting in the face of the crisis at hand. Voices, some of them now panicked cries for help, still squawked over the comm channels, but Starscream paid them no mind as he slipped quietly into the corridor.

Since there was only one escape pod tube on this level – which was why he had chosen it – the water wasn't very deep yet, only halfway to Starscream's ankle, so navigating was no problem. As he neared the tube, he could hear the water pouring in, crashing loudly as it spewed from the wide interior opening of the upwardly-canted tube and onto the deck plates and against the opposite bulkhead. The force of the incoming flood made it quite difficult to enter the tube, but Starscream managed it, transforming as he did so, the width of the tube easily accommodating his wingspan. "Flying" against the incoming tide was difficult, too, but also manageable with thrusters at maximum. Once through the tube, overcoming the currents that wanted to suck him back into Headquarters like one of the disgusting organic creatures about which his comrades had been complaining was easier still, and soon Starscream was fully away, slipping unseen and unchallenged into the eternal, abyssal, and silent darkness that shrouded Decepticon Headquarters. He headed for the surface with all possible haste; "flying" underwater was categorically not his idea of fun.

Starscream's energy levels were laughably low as he breached the surface of the Pacific, rocketing out of it and into the piercing sunshine above in a glittering arc of spray and noise. Most of his peripheral systems had shut down long ago, in the face of weeks of little-to-no recharge and even less energon, and now some of his diagnostics were reporting that some of his vital systems were starting to give up the ghost, too. Other systems, some of them still fully powered, hadn't been at all happy about the swim. And he had a journey of a few thousand miles ahead of him, most of it over ocean. Given his condition, Starscream was dismally aware that it was unlikely that he'd be able to complete the journey without meeting up with that ocean again at some point along the way.

But he had no choice now, he grimly realized as he adjusted course. He had saved his own hide in a somewhat spectacular fashion…but now there was simply nowhere else to go but his new intended destination. Starscream was quite certain that, assuming that it/they survived the unexpected flood, Decepticon Headquarters and its inhabitants would never welcome him again, not after this. So now there was only one person in the entire universe who could conceivably help him. And if she wouldn't or couldn't help him, then at least she was likely to cheerfully reduce him to a zillion tiny bits.

And if it came to that, that worked for Starscream, too. If only because she _wasn't_ Megatron.

* * *

_Hee hee…Screamer's destructive when crazy, isn't he? But I guess we all knew that already. I mean, this __**is**__ the guy who tried to blow up the Earth. Twice. He's rather like Marvin the Martian that way…_

_Speaking of crazy, though, meet Starscream's theme song for this fic (Copypasta, remove spaces):_

_http:/ www. youtube. com/watch ? v= GUXfrkBHqhg_

_*snicker*_

_For those of you who might be disappointed with this chapter because of a lack of real confrontation between Starscream and Megatron…Well, just wait. Trust me, the big confrontation __**will**__ happen and…Well, let's just say that it will change things drastically. *laughs* But it's not ready to happen yet. To have had a big confrontation here would have made the later confrontation redundant and perhaps even a bit anticlimactic. So, sit tight. We'll get there…eventually…_

_Now, review replies!_

_** Shadir: **__You hear that, Mirage? Stop spitting! _

_**Mirage:**__ *confused* What? _

_Never mind!_

_OK, so maybe the gentlemen can't help Starscream with __**that**__ particular problem… :) You'll still have to share him, though. And it's funny that you should mention karma. The title of this story is a shortened "What goes around, comes around," which is basically the meaning of karma, that what you do eventually comes back to you, for better or worse. This story is really all about karma. No less than __**four**__ characters get to experience it in big and small ways. I'll bet they're all thrilled…_

_**Carmilla: **__Well, a surprise bad ending would have been terribly mean of me, wouldn't it? Plus, I can't kill Swoop! Luv da Swoop, whatever version I cook up of him…her…whatever. ;) Besides, I like happy endings! Happy, I say! Well, __**eventual**__ happy endings, anyway… OK, __**temporarily**__ happy endings, maybe. Ambiguously happy endings? *cough* I think I missed my calling as a soap opera writer…_

_**Blume: **__Poor Mirage. Much as I don't really like his canon self, seeing him as annoyingly whiny among other things, I __**do**__ actually feel quite badly for this version that I've cooked up of him, probably because I have determinedly made him non-whiny and more of a – Dare I say it? – grown-up. In fact, I think I actually __**like**__ this version of him. Scaaaaary… :) He isn't really a coward, though. Just…a bit overwhelmed, at the moment. He'll deal with it, though. They both will. Mostly because they have no choice._

_**Starfire:**__ Yup, Mirage is feeling his way, definitely. He kind of has to because, once again, it's paradigm shift time for the poor lad. Usually, people only experience one of those in a lifetime, if they experience one at all. Guess Mirage is just…lucky? And yes, one of my goals with this story (and with subsequent ones if I choose to write them) is to grow him up a bit and to remove the whininess that greatly irritates me while still retaining the wistfulness and a certain level of righteous outrage. I guess I want to bring out the noble in him, in a sense._

_And yeah! A "bit" demented. What? I like dramatic understatement! ;) And…Well, now you know about Soundwave. Pope John Paul II was called "The Fisherman." Frankly, I think the title better suits Soundwave. _

_**Next time:**__ Unexpected guests. They're always just __**so**__ much fun, aren't they?_


	10. 8: Fallen Eagle

_**Note:** This chapter was updated 1/5/10, mostly as part of the effort to fix this story's overall narrative voice to make it consistently third-person throughout. There may be other minor changes from the original, as well, but nothing plot-significant._

_

* * *

_

_**8: Fallen Eagle**_

It had been far too easy to shoot down Starscream.

Swoop had gotten pretty good at combating the Seekers over the years, sure, but she knew that she wasn't _that_ good, certainly not when pitted one-on-one against the aerial wizard that was Starscream. Even with her new and upgraded body, he had millennia of experience on her, was easily three times as fast as she was, and could probably fly circles around her while half comatose. So really, it was obvious to Swoop that Starscream had wanted her to shoot him down, if not actually to destroy him. The last and somewhat frantic communiqué that he'd transmitted to her on a frequency meant only for her had been telling, not to mention weird and disturbing.

"Please make it stop, Swoop," he had said.

There had been un-Starscream-like quiet desperation in his voice, but Swoop had had no idea what he had meant. Make _what_ stop? And he'd said please? And before that he'd been babbling like a raving lunatic, the only coherent thing he'd said pretty much being to beg her to come out and meet him, alone? She'd been about to ask him just what the hell he thought he was doing, but it was at that point that a large number of naturally-concerned Autobots had arrived on the scene. Once that had happened and it was clear what was about to happen, Starscream had uttered a desolate, desperate, "For the love of Primus, _just_ _do it_!" at her, screeching loudly enough that probably everyone had heard it. He'd bellowed this at Swoop just before firing every weapon that he possessed at her.

Starscream knew Swoop well. They'd been particularly bitter opponents for twenty-four years now, so he knew that, if fired upon, her instincts were to fire back, uncoordinatedly and without putting much thought into it at all. He used the tactic against her all the time, much to her frustration. She was getting better at containing the wild and distracting counter-impulse now, if she wanted to or if the situation called for it, but it was still very much a work in progress. This, too, Starscream knew. His aim had not been true when he'd fired at her, but it was obvious to her that he hadn't been trying to damage her. Under normal circumstances, Starscream rarely missed, so it seemed to Swoop that his intention had been to force her to react, not to destroy her, and he had achieved his objective. Dodging his barrage but for a glancing, stinging laser blast that lightly singed the top of one of her wings, she had fired her own barrage back at him. One of her air-to-air missiles had impacted him squarely at the juncture of one of his wings and his fuselage, a Seeker weak spot that she always targeted.

She'd landed much better shots on Starscream in the past, and he'd shaken them off with relative ease, faltering only slightly in flight for a moment or two as his systems compensated for any damage that she'd managed to inflict on him. This had usually lasted only long enough to allow her to escape his clutches, however momentarily. But this time, he had completely lost control, eventually spiraling down to Earth, slamming into it almost directly nose first and with a level of force that had made Swoop wince in sincere sympathy. He'd skipped along the ground a few times after the initial impact before coming to rest in a heap, and then he had been utterly still.

Losing control and crashing like that was very much out of character for Starscream, who was perhaps the most dazzling and the most capable, albeit reckless, flier ever to grace their species. But now, hours later, Swoop had some idea as to why it had happened. Although Starscream's crash had looked horrible, the damage that it had inflicted on him hadn't been life-threatening. He was a tough nut to crack that way. Except for a badly-crumpled wing that had taken some of the brunt of the initial impact and that would be much easier to simply replace than it would be to repair, the damage had mostly been a fairly easy fix.

It was rather ironic, repairing damage that she herself had caused, but Swoop had something of a vested interest in doing so. Starscream had put her, specifically, into an awkward position, and she wanted answers as to why. And as of now, early in the evening after the bizarre encounter that had made Starscream their guest early that morning, he lacked only a few parts that Wheeljack was grudgingly fabricating for her, including the wing. She was keeping Starscream offline, and therefore harmless and not requiring extra security arrangements, in the interim.

Really, it was everything _else_ that was wrong with Starscream that had Swoop worried. None of it had been caused by her or by the crash, but it did perhaps have the potential to answer some of the questions that she had. It had already given her some possible theories as to why Starscream had come to Autobot Headquarters, alone, energy depleted, and half-crazed, in the first place.

Swoop was frankly amazed that Starscream had been able to make the trip at all. Many of his systems were shut down. All indications from the diagnostics that she'd run were that Starscream had been almost completely drained of energy well before he'd arrived in Autobot Headquarters's airspace. Worse, several of his more vital systems were in a state of near-terminal degradation, which among other things indicated that he hadn't properly recharged in weeks. And then, when she'd run a few deep-level diagnostics on him, it had revealed peculiar, precise, and systematic instances of physical damage to various but specific sensory relays as well as, more disturbingly, damage to his spark chamber itself.

At the moment, Swoop was busily poking around in Starscream's wide-open chest, cataloguing all of the issues at hand so that she could speak intelligently with him about all of it when she brought him back online. She was so absorbed in her task that she didn't notice Ratchet's approach until he determinedly planted himself on the other side of Starscream's berth. Swoop looked up at him in time to see him folding his arms over his chest, glancing down with distaste at her patient, and then giving her an appraising and distinctly displeased look.

"What?" Swoop asked defensively as she returned to her work.

"How are you doing?" Ratchet asked gruffly in return.

"Me?" she responded, looking up at him again in surprise. "I'm fine." She lightly tapped the center of her chest a few times and added, "It's feeling more than a little crowded in here now, but I imagine that's normal."

"I suppose so," Ratchet said dispassionately. "You shouldn't have gone out there today," he added, gracelessly changing the subject to what was really bothering him. He was not exactly subtle about such things. Swoop paused in her work, stood up straight, folded her arms over her chest to mirror Ratchet's posture, and stared defiantly back at him. "Those," he continued before she could say anything, pointing at her chest, "will be ready to come out soon. You endangered them all with that stunt you pulled."

"I had to," Swoop answered simply, flatly, narrowing her eyes stubbornly at him.

"You _had_ to?" Ratchet echoed incredulously. "Swoop, you—"

"He _asked_ me to," she interrupted quietly in order to avert Ratchet's impending rant, gesturing down at Starscream.

Ratchet looked at her askance.

"He asked you to?" he echoed, scowling severely at Swoop. "What, with smoke signals?"

"Private frequency," Swoop growled, giving Ratchet an unamused glare. "Don't know how he got it but…He asked for me, and I decided to go. Figured I owed him that much."

Ratchet's expression shifted in an instant to one of angry disbelief.

"You don't owe him _anything_!" he asserted. "And in case it's slipped your mind or something, may I remind you that _he tried to kill you_?"

Swoop snorted and then waved a dismissive and impatient hand at him.

"If he'd wanted me dead, Ratchet, I wouldn't be standing here. You know that. And _I_ think," she added, tapping her chest significantly again, "that I _do_ owe him."

She was trying her best to remain calm. She'd learned the hard way that, at this very late stage of the game, if she allowed herself to become upset or to experience any sort of stronger emotion, then the developing sparks tended to become very agitated, and as a result of their agitation, her insides became very painfully overcrowded very quickly. She tried to avoid that sort of situation now, if possible. It wasn't so much for her own comfort, but more because she was concerned that the little ones might be damaged. Since she'd upset them enough by going out to meet Starscream and then being fired upon, Swoop felt it wise not to upset them again today.

"He had no choice about _that_," Ratchet was saying scathingly, meanwhile. He was scowling fiercely at Swoop in disbelief.

"He had no choice about _coming_, yes," Swoop agreed evenly, still holding on to calm, going back to scanning and poking at Starscream's innards as a kind of distraction while she spoke. "And he had no choice about…about…well, you know. But he had many possible choices otherwise. If nothing else, he could have made the experience horrible for me, but he didn't. At all. He was…good to me. _Very _good, actually," she finished with a fondly reminiscent chuckle.

Ratchet went very still after that, and Swoop looked up at him in amusement, taking in his stunned expression as he realized the implications of her words.

"And if I know Megatron," Swoop added as Ratchet just continued to blink dumbfoundedly at her, "he was under orders to kill me, and he chose not to do that, either, for whatever reason. I'm sure his reasons were completely selfish, but I _still_ owe him. We _all_ owe him. Unless," she finished acidly, "you have more queens hiding out in stasis somewhere?"

That set Ratchet back on his heels for a moment. He scowled at Swoop, glared at her prodigiously, but he kept his mouth shut; it was a very rare occasion when he didn't have a clever retort in an argument. But it really couldn't be denied that, when it came to Swoop, Starscream _had_ done the right thing, and pointing this out to Ratchet very effectively shut him up. As far as Swoop could remember, it was the first argument against him that she'd ever won.

"In any case," she added with a sigh when Ratchet didn't say anything but also didn't stomp away in exasperation, "I'm pretty sure that his goal was to try to convince _me_ to shoot _him_ down." Lowering her voice, she added, "Ratchet, I'm 98% certain that he had no intention of harming me and simply wanted to be captured. I think he asked for me alone so that he wouldn't have to deal with the rest of us trying _en masse_ to kill him."

"What makes you think all that?" Ratchet asked, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully at her.

"The last thing he said to me," Swoop explained, "was 'Please make it stop.'"

"Make what stop?" Ratchet asked, scowling again, but this time more in puzzlement than in anger.

"My question exactly!" Swoop responded. "It'll be the first thing I ask him when I wake him up. But when I didn't answer him because I was too busy trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about, _that _waswhen he fired at me. And it was desperate. You were there by then. I'm sure you heard what he said just before he fired at me."

"Mmmm," Ratchet grumbled unhappily.

"And _then_," Swoop added, gesturing at the _pièce de résistance_, the minute damage she'd found, "there's all of this."

Frowning, Ratchet bent down to have a closer look at the damage that Swoop had indicated.

"What in the seven _hells_…?" he murmured fervently, squinting as he visually traced the progression of the damage, just as Swoop had done earlier, when she had first discovered it.

"I'm pretty sure it's all self-inflicted," she said quietly as Ratchet poked around at Starscream's innards for a bit and then ran a few scans of his own to confirm her findings.

"I would tend to agree," he said absently a minute later, frowning thoughtfully at the results that his scanner was spitting at him. "It's too precise and too isolated to be anything else. But…_why_?" Ratchet wondered, apparently putting aside his irritation with Swoop in the face of a mystery. "This would hurt. A lot. Ow," he added, wincing as he took in the damage on Starscream's spark chamber. "Hell, I'm surprised that _that_ didn't kill him."

The damage to which Ratchet was referring was indicative of Starscream's spark absorbing spikes of energy, some of them quite powerful, that it really had no business absorbing and that, by all rights, should indeed have killed him; his spark was not at all meant to do such a thing. Somehow, he hadn't been killed. Nevertheless, the pain would have been intense, and Swoop _knew_ what that sort of thing felt like. In fact, she wondered if Starscream had been dubiously inspired by her. But whatever the case, he must have been quite desperate to resort to such a thing.

"I know it would hurt a lot," Swoop answered Ratchet softly. "_Believe_ me, I know."

"I suppose you do," Ratchet replied, giving her a half-smile that made her think that she was forgiven, for the moment, for her rash actions earlier in the day. "But what makes you think that someone else didn't do this _to_ him?"

Swoop shrugged and answered, "There are very painful ways to torture someone that don't kill the subject as a result. A dead subject can't tell you anything."

Ratchet grunted an agreeing noise, but didn't say anything.

"And I did a little bit of reading," Swoop added quietly as Ratchet poked cautiously at Starscream's spark chamber, "about self-abuse." At Ratchet's questioning look, she explained, "There isn't much in our databases about such a thing, but the humans… They're quite creative about hurting themselves."

Ratchet snorted disgustedly at that.

"Why am I not surprised?" he muttered, then added something under his breath that Swoop couldn't quite hear but that definitely involved the words "organics" and "fruitcakes."

She chuckled and then said, more seriously, "Oftentimes, they do it to distract themselves from something else that's bothering them, something that they see as much worse than the pain that they inflict on themselves."

"And you're thinking that's the case here?" Ratchet answered, looking up at her skeptically, narrow-eyed.

"Maybe," Swoop answered with an uncertain shrug. "It appears to me that none of the damage is older than…than when he was with me," she added pointedly.

"Swoop…" Ratchet said warningly, but she spoke over him.

"It looks like he started back here," she said, ignoring Ratchet, setting about demonstratively tracing the damage back to a secondary sensor node nestled in the middle of Starscream's forearm, "and then when that wasn't enough, he—"

"Moved on to something more sensitive, from secondaries to primaries here," Ratchet said flatly, finishing Swoop's thought and indicating a sensory nexus that was normally nestled in the depths of the circuitry in Starscream's shoulder; Swoop had carefully teased it out from the surrounding circuitry and wiring that normally concealed it so that she could examine it. "And then eventually," Ratchet concluded, tracing down to the middle of Starscream's chest, "to his damned spark chamber itself."

"And then when _that_ wasn't enough," Swoop tentatively theorized, "maybe… Maybe he figured that I – that _we_ – were the only ones who could help him."

"Swoop…" That cautioning tone was back.

"I _did_ imprint on him, Ratchet," she pointed out quietly.

"That," he answered, frowning at the change of subject but quickly figuring out what she might be getting at, "shouldn't be having any effect on him now. Normally—"

"Ah, but I'm not normal," Swoop pointed out. "I _especially_ wasn't normal when I imprinted on him _and_ when I was…with him."

Ratchet frowned severely at her.

"Unless there's something _really_ important that you're not telling me here, Winglet, what you two did was a direct _one-way_ energy infusion from him to you. Not the other way around. None of your issues should have backwashed into him. It's not like it was a mutual sharing kind of thing, like a merge."

"The key words there, Ratchet," Swoop pointed out, "are 'should have.' Can you be sure about that?"

"Well, no," Ratchet hedged. "You _are_ rather unique, but—"

"He said," she added determinedly, speaking over Ratchet, "'Make it stop.' The only thing that I can think of that from his point of view I, specifically, might be able to 'stop' is the imprint. If it never went away, then it must have been – must _still_ be – driving him crazy, and maybe pain was the only thing that stopped the craziness for a while. Or maybe it was just a welcome distraction. But whatever the case, when it didn't work anymore…Well, here he is."

Ratchet stared at her a thoughtful expression on his face. Then he gave her a more penetrating look.

"That's complete speculation," he said sternly. "And it's far-fetched to boot."

"I know," Swoop answered evenly. "But it does explain some things."

"It does, yes," Ratchet agreed distractedly, staring thoughtfully down at Starscream for a long moment, his eyes narrowed. When he looked back up at Swoop, he was more focused as he added, "There is one thing we can check that would support your theory." When she just looked back at him questioningly, he explained, "Part of the purpose of the imprint was to align his spark energy with yours so that your spark could safely accept input from his. It's rather like a bond that way, but temporary. Point is, it would have altered _his_ energy signature, but not yours, and his _should_ have reverted when the imprint wore off. If his is still matched to yours…"

"Then I'm right, and the imprint never wore off," Swoop finished triumphantly. "So, we need to run a comparison."

"Yes, Wingnut," Ratchet said affectionately. "We do. But I'm not about to go poking around at your spark at the moment. Bad enough that I transplanted you." She chuckled as Ratchet continued, "Plus, all the Juniors dancing around in there now would likely throw off any readings, anyway. So it'll have to wait until you've…uh, delivered."

Swoop nodded understandingly and asked, "Should we keep him offline until then?"

Ratchet sighed, shaking his head as he stared down at Starscream's inert form, frowning at his dim and weakly-pulsing red spark, a bit of worry furrowing his brow despite himself and despite the identity of the object of his worry.

"I'm not sure that's the best idea, either. You're at what? Thirty days or so now?"

"Thirty-three," she confirmed.

Ratchet nodded.

"So you've got three or four days to go, if things go normally. I don't think it's a good idea to keep him offline that long, especially not if the idiot's managed to damage his own spark with his shenanigans." He paced around Starscream's berth, frowning thoughtfully down at him. "We'll bring him around tomorrow afternoon," he decided. "Wheeljack should have his important bits done by then and he should be fully re-energized by then, too. _And_ it'll give me time to calm Optimus down about the whole business."

"Don't forget Red Alert," Swoop put in lightly. "I'm sure he'll want _very_ special security arrangements in place well in advance."

"Mmmm," Ratchet grumbled. He was never happy about having to deal with extra security in his domain.

"The CMO's work is never done," Swoop said, quirking a teasing grin at him.

"Watch it, you," Ratchet responded grumpily. "Or I'll retire and give _you_ the job."

"Can't," she teased again, grinning delightedly. "Aid's got seniority."

Ratchet responded with a snort and a wordless grumble. Then he gave her a critical, narrowed-eyed look and said, "You look tired. You've been at this all day now, so…Get out of here." When Swoop opened her mouth to protest, Ratchet spoke over her, saying, "No, no, that's an order, Swoop. I won't have you endangering the Juniors any more than you already have today. Go."  
Swoop sighed exasperatedly at that, but knew that she had no choice but to obey. Not only did Ratchet have his "CMO Voice" on, but he also had his "Dad Voice" on. Whenever that happened, there was no protest in the universe, no matter how logical, that she could offer that he would listen to. She was glad that, very soon, he and everyone else would have a dozen or so fewer reasons to mother-hen her.

"I'll keep an eye on this one for you," Ratchet was quietly assuring her meanwhile, inclining his head down at Starscream.

Swoop snorted at that.

"Oh, I'm sure you will," she answered.

And with that, she headed toward the medbay doors. Ratchet was right; she _was_ tired, but she was also still keyed up from Starscream's unexpected arrival. She wasn't yet ready to settle down for the night. Plus, she had some unfinished business with the historical databases and now was, suddenly, the perfect time to finish it.

* * *

_Hmmm…Ratchet really crept into this story big time, didn't he? I'm only just noticing it as I'm posting this, actually. Sneaky little medic. I guess I felt a need to explore his relationship to Swoop a bit. Or a lot, apparently. I mean, it's pretty well-known how Wheeljack feels about the Dinos, but Ratchet? Not so much. Guess I felt a need to fill in that blank, at least when it comes to Swoop, to whom Ratchet is for obvious reason the closest. Funny how that happened…_

_Anyway…Review replies!_

_**Starfire**__: The 4__th__ karma victim…actually hasn't shown yet. But he will, although he doesn't have a huge role in this story at all. You're right about the other three, though. Poor Swoop's just a victim of circumstance, so no karma for her. At least, not in this story. ;) _

_And no, Starscream's ramblings about cowardice and such aren't really a reference to the movies. It's actually me trying to keep Screamer canon-y (at least for now, in this part of the story) even though I've plunked him into a very non-canon circumstance. Trust me to have to write an AU to make Starscream more like his canon self. :D But anyway, the second movie obviously attempted to make Starscream more G1-y (Not entirely successfully, IMO, but I have a very jaundiced view of that movie, so this opinion might just be snippiness on my part), so I guess we kind of thought along similar lines that way. But I actually wrote the original of this chapter back in May, according to the date on the draft (I date everything. It's a fetish, I'm afraid), which was before ROTF was released; that stuff survived the subsequent rewrite._

_**Trapped in Reality**__: YAAAAAAY! Someone picked up on my bug inspiration! Termites, specifically, I should add. My favorite social insects. I'm continuing the grand tradition of making aliens a lot like bugs, indeed. As for the rest…Yeah, the movieverse has Megatron-as-disruptor-of-social-order in its backstory, indeed. I can't honestly say whether that influenced me or not. I had dreamed up a similar sort of idea many years ago, in an attempt to make my own logical backstory for the whole civil war thing, some of which is being incorporated into this 'verse. But perhaps the movies __**did**__ bring the concept back to the forefront of my attention again… _

_But I can't see what you're seeing as Beast Wars-ian… Then again, I haven't watched BW in…well, about ten years now, so there might be a connection I'm not making._

_But, yeah. Sorry for the brain hurt. It's only gonna get worse, I fear…_

_**Shadir**__: He __**is**__ Marvin! I swear! All he needs is the little skirt and the funny hat and the little tennis shoes. And the Illidium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator, of course. ;) And K-9._

_And dude! You're from Chile! That's awesome…_

_**Jenn**__: I guess Screamer's a cute crazy rather than a scary crazy. Well, until he starts blowing things up, of course. ;) The comment about TC survived the first draft, which was more stream-of-consciousness, which is why it was bugging me. But in it he went off on this bizarre riff, comparing TC and Soundwave. Like, TC's blue and so is Soundwave, only Soundwave is dark blue and TC is light blue. So TC became "Soundwave Light." So there were some funny bits in there, but in the end it just didn't really "fit." But I did keep a bit of TC/Soundwave comparison. Because it was, in my mind, just too fun._

_**Carmilla**__: Well, the 'Bots haven't __**truly**__ welcomed Screamer…yet. But they will. ;)_

_**Next time:**__ Swoop. Mirage. A battle to the death. OK, not really. But they do have a chat! About stuff! And things!_


	11. 9: Ties That Bind

_**Note:** This chapter was updated 1/5/10, mostly as part of the effort to fix this story's overall narrative voice to make it consistently third-person throughout. There may be other minor changes from the original, as well, but nothing plot-significant._

_

* * *

_

_**9: Ties That Bind**_

"She's not exactly a parent of which to be proud, is she?"

Swoop's back had been to the doors of the archives, and she hadn't heard them open, hadn't heard Mirage come in and move to stand a few paces behind her. His quiet and sorrow-tinged voice from unexpectedly close-by made her jump nearly to the ceiling, startling not only her but also the infant sparks within her; they jolted about rather painfully. Fighting to suppress a yelp, Swoop laid one hand on her chest and began to gently tap out a repetitive rhythm against it with her fingertips. She'd only recently discovered that doing so would sometimes calm the new lives inside of her, and this time, although it took a few long moments to have an effect, it worked. She used those moments to gather her thoughts before she turned to face Mirage.

She'd been completely engrossed in reading about her…family. Even in her thoughts, she hesitated and stumbled over the word, as if it was an unseen boulder in her path. The concept still wasn't real to her. In the couple of weeks that had passed since she'd awakened to find herself in a new body and with an entirely new life, Swoop hadn't taken the time to sit and reflect about…everything. She hadn't had the opportunity to absorb all of it. Or rather, she _had_ had the opportunity, but she had been deliberately burying herself in work or whatever else she could think of so that she didn't _have_ to think about or deal with all of it. She had put off doing so for as long as possible, but she had known even as she'd delayed that she couldn't put off dealing with these issues forever. And now, it was all catching up to her.

For a few days after she'd awakened, Swoop had been convinced that she was merely dreaming, but it was clear to her now that this was no dream. Or nightmare, as the case may be. This, all of this, was her reality now, and reality wasn't going to change no matter how much she tried to ignore it, no matter how much she tried to go on with her life as if nothing had changed. So, with that realization, disturbing thoughts had begun to trickle into her mind at odd times, the tendency strangely worsening with Starscream's arrival, as if his sudden and unexpected appearance was a message from Primus that she needed to start dealing with everything that had happened to her. And, once summarily dismissed from the medbay, she suddenly found herself with time to ponder and no handy excuses not to do so. She suddenly had time to do some of the research that she'd been avoiding, time to allow some facts that she'd been doing her best to ignore to sink fully into her consciousness, her very being, instead.

Like the fact that she _was_ part of a family, for instance. It was a fractured and mostly-decimated family now, to be sure, but it wasn't completely gone. She had a traitorous uncle in the Decepticon ranks, apparently, which was fabulous news. She also had a brother, besides her Dinobot brothers, who was now standing in the very same room with her, just behind her. He was a brother who had, ironically, always been thoughtlessly unkind to her, dismissive at best, regarding her as a primitive whom he thought – so she had always felt, anyway – was completely unworthy of existence. That history made things more difficult between them now, to say the least.

And on a wider scale, having spent her evening sipping highest-quality energon – a perk of her condition – and consulting historical databases, it dawned on Swoop as it hadn't really dawned on her before that she was part of a dynasty that had existed, blissfully uninterrupted, from the dawn of time up until the initiation of Megatron's revolt just a few thousand years ago. If she wanted to, she could easily trace her direct ancestry back hundreds of thousands of years and even farther, until recorded history faded with the eons.

Now, as Swoop stroked a hand absently over her chest, she realized that it was her duty not only to produce new sparks but particularly to continue the dynasty itself. As overwhelming as the very thought was, it further occurred to her that it would be very wise to start doing so as soon as possible. Entrenched in an on-going civil war as she was, there was no guarantee that she would be alive in a week or even that she would see the sunrise tomorrow. And if she were to die with no successor, then her species would be right back where it had been before it was known who and what she was: Doomed to eventual and certain extinction. Whether or not her entire species continued to exist into the future, after her own death, was completely her responsibility now, and it was a responsibility that was suddenly crushing her, so overwhelming on so many different levels that she didn't want to think about it at all, didn't know where, really, to begin.

In fact, her entire existence was suddenly overwhelming. The only family she'd thought she had were Wheeljack, Ratchet, and the other Dinobots, with all of whom she was extremely close, certainly closer than she was with this newly-discovered family of hers. And she'd thought that the only important thing that she'd ever do in her life would be to heal those who needed healing, to save lives.

How wrong she had been, on all fronts.

Swoop sighed heavily and turned her chair to face Mirage then. He was indeed standing there, his posture thoughtlessly perfect but his expression troubled, a few paces behind her. As usual, his blue and white armor gleamed in the archives' pale lighting. Even when he was covered with dirt, Mirage always managed, somehow, to gleam, to look utterly dignified. It was an intimidating ability, to say the least. He was intimidating in general, actually, or at least he had always been so to Swoop. He still was.

Swoop didn't know how long Mirage had been standing there, but she was certain that he'd realized what she was doing here. If nothing else, he could see what she had been looking at, and now he was giving her a look that she couldn't quite interpret, since she didn't know him very well, but that might have been approving. Maybe. He'd never looked at her in approval before, so she wasn't at all sure what approval from him looked like.

In any case, Mirage had been avoiding Swoop as much as she'd been avoiding him in the couple of weeks since she'd gotten the new body that she was wearing, since he had been, so Ratchet had told her, instrumental in saving her life. Neither of them seemed to know quite what to make of the other now, but Swoop was very aware that it would be wise to establish a détente between them sooner rather than later. In order for that to happen, they needed to find some common ground upon which to build, and she was keenly aware that, for the moment, the _only_ common ground that they had was…her. Their mother.

And when it came to her…Well, what Mirage had said was true. Swoop had heard vague stories and whisperings about her here and there over the course of her life so far. She had never paid much attention to the stories because she'd always thought that for her, "born" long after her death, the assassinated queen was irrelevant. She belonged to an era that had been brought to an abrupt end long before Swoop had existed. She was just a bit of interesting but ultimately meaningless trivia. As it turned out, this wasn't so at all, was another way in which Swoop was completely wrong. About practically everything.

And she'd learned only just this evening that she who had birthed her had indeed done reprehensible things. She'd learned that her mother had not been a "good person," as the humans would term it. She had been relentlessly imperialistic and had had a ruling council that had agreed with her. Whether they really did agree with her or were merely cowed into doing so, Swoop didn't know, and the records weren't entirely clear on that point, either, often conflicting with each other depending on the chronicler's bias. Whatever the case, her tendencies had been much to the misfortune of surrounding systems, which suffered under her. Cybertron's "Golden Age" had come and had been maintained at a massively heavy price, its resource demands becoming positively enormous during the millennia of her mother's rule. An ever-widening circle of neighboring planets and systems found themselves feeding the demand whether they wanted to or not, much to their own devastation. Some of them had ended up drained of resources to the point that they were no longer habitable. Indeed, one had been reduced to a field of rubble, a lonely and forbidding asteroid belt eternally circling its star.

And of course her mother had been positively horrid to the warriors. She threw away their lives needlessly, sometimes for mere entertainment spectacles, and she shamelessly used their inborn reverence of her to compel them to obey her whims, even when those whims had nothing to do with their function.

"Tyrant" was a good word to describe her mother, Swoop decided; she put Megatron to shame in many ways. And because of that, she had most certainly brought about her own spectacularly bloody downfall, to the point that certain chronicles painted Megatron, the instrument of that downfall, as a savior. Of course, these were chronicles that had been recorded well before Megatron had started to become much like her mother in many ways.

Although Swoop had never known her mother, had no memory whatsoever of her or of anything at all about her very brief "previous life," she was discovering that it was still a surprisingly staggering blow to know that one of the individuals responsible for her existence had been so rightfully hated. At least Mirage carried the same burden, and Swoop just then realized that that shared burden was the logical place to lay the first few planks of a bridge between her and her brother.

"I'm sorry that I startled you," Mirage was quietly apologizing, meanwhile. "I thought that you had heard me but that…that you were ignoring me," he explained. At the quizzical look Swoop gave him, he hastily added, "Not that you don't have legitimate reasons for wanting to ignore me, of course. I have been…less than kind to you."

"You didn't know," Swoop answered quietly after a moment spent staring at him, wondering what he was up to. "You couldn't have known."

"That's not a valid excuse," Mirage insisted firmly. "If I've learned anything from…from all of this with you…it's that I should never assume anything about anyone. So, I'm…I'm sorry for the things I've said to you and about you in the past, and I'm sorry for the way that I've treated you. And I…I beg your forgiveness."

Swoop could tell from Mirage's posture and from the expression on his face, that he was completely serious, utterly sincere. She frowned at him thoughtfully, never dreaming that she'd see the day when haughty Mirage would humbly beg for anything, least of all from the likes of her. A gloating and less-than-kind part of her informed Swoop that she should be enjoying this, that she should be savoring the sheer irony of it, and that she should be making her enjoyment of the moment very clear to Mirage. That part of Swoop informed her that she should be viewing Mirage's humbling as some hard-won victory. But she ignored that part of herself. This was no victory at all. At best, Mirage had been the victim of the worst kind of sneak attack, and there was no honor in that at all. So…

"I'll forgive you," Swoop told Mirage levelly after she'd spent a few long moments staring at him, during which he'd actually started to fidget nervously. "On one condition," she added.

Mirage gazed at her seriously, golden eyes wide and glowing in the dim lighting.

"_Anything_," he said, utterly sincere.

At that, Swoop inclined her head slightly backward, toward the small screen sitting on the desk that was now behind her since she'd turned to face Mirage. An image of their mother was frozen on the screen.

"Tell me something about her," Swoop requested. "Something that isn't horrible. I know that there had to be _some_ good in her _somewhere_ that the chroniclers just…forgot."

At that, Mirage smiled a sad little half-smile, and he pulled over the chair from the desk next to the one that Swoop was using, so that he could sit down with her.

"Chroniclers are brutal," he agreed quietly as he settled himself, as he stared at the image frozen on the screen. "Particularly so when they've been…encouraged…by Megatron," he added absently.

"Mmmm," Swoop murmured. "I imagine so."

Mirage sat back in his chair then for a few moments, obviously gathering his thoughts.

"You know," he finally admitted, studiously not looking at Swoop, "I avoid thinking about her at all. I avoid thinking about anything having to do with…that time. To think about any of it is painful."

Swoop could understand that. Mirage's life had been destroyed overnight and his – _their_ – mother had been a large part of that life that was suddenly gone as if it had never been. Remembering her, thinking about her, telling Swoop about her meant remembering that the destruction had happened, as well. It meant facing the reality of the present. It meant accepting the fact that he would likely never again be what he once had been, that even though Swoop was there now, fulfilling her function, their society was still in tatters, likely never to recover or at least never to return to exactly what it had been. That the so-called "Golden Age" was well and truly gone, in all probability never to return, was what Mirage really didn't want to face, much less to accept.

"But," Mirage was softly continuing meanwhile, "you're right that you of all people should know about her. Maybe more people should know about her, actually, beyond the…the…"

"Horrible," Swoop supplied softly as his voice trailed off.

"Yes, that," he answered, equally softly, with a soft and unhappy smile. He was quiet again for a long moment after that, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Then, sighing, he turned his head to look at Swoop, his gaze locking with hers. "There were twenty-two of us when it…when she died. I was the eldest, and you, obviously, were the youngest. Your name was—"

"Eclipse," Swoop said. "I know. I saw images of me," she added, gesturing vaguely at the screen.

Mirage quirked a small, sad smile at her.

"That must have been weird," he commented.

"Maybe not as weird as you'd think," she answered with a half-shrug and a sad half-smile. "At least, not right now, when _none_ of this seems real to me and _all_ of it seems weird. I mean, I look at her, and I look at you and…and…"

"I know," Mirage assured her quietly, nodding sympathetically as her voice trailed off helplessly. "I feel the same way about you."

"At least in your case," Swoop answered with a snort that bordered on bitter, "you have something to work from. Memories. Knowledge of exactly who and what you are because you've never been someone _else_ for your entire life as you've known it. I have none of that, Mirage. I have _nothing_, now. I can't really be the same person that I have been until now, and I have no idea how to be this other person, this Eclipse person."

Mirage was silent for a long moment after that, staring at Swoop contemplatively and with obvious – and, to her, startling – sympathy. He eventually answered, his voice low, "Then be a new person, Swoop." She just stared at him, blinking, so he continued, "You're right that you can't entirely be who you were just a few weeks ago. You aren't _just_ Swoop the Dinobot, the medic, anymore. You are infinitely more important than that, and you have…responsibilities."

"I know," she answered miserably.

"_But_," Mirage added, "you're also in a position to bring about change. Change for the better, for _all_ of us, even for the Decepticons. You can do things the _right_ way, Swoop. The way that my…_our_ mother apparently couldn't do them."

Swoop gaped at Mirage for a long while after that, words not coming to her.

"I have no idea how to do that," she said bluntly and frankly, once she could speak at all.

Mirage shrugged slightly as he gave her an appraising look.

"You'll figure it out, and you'll learn as you go," he said with far more confidence than she felt. "Probably quickly, too, just as you've always learned everything else that you've set your mind to learning." Swoop smiled at that, surprised not to mention flattered that he'd noticed. Meanwhile, Mirage continued, "You just have to want it. And if you do, you have people who care deeply about you to help you. You have four Dinobot brothers who will protect you with their very lives, if necessary with their dying breaths, just as they always have. And you are surrounded by wise people who will help you and guide you, if you but let them do so. All you have to do is…Listen to them."

"Are you one of these 'wise people,' then?" she teased gently.

Mirage shrugged again, but this time he was smiling.

"Oh, absolutely," he asserted. Then he chuckled quietly, and she chuckled back, feeling more relaxed with him than she ever had.

A stretch of silence fell between them after that, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence at all. Swoop could tell that Mirage was thinking as he stared at the far wall, and she felt no need to interrupt his contemplations, content just to sit with him and do some contemplating of her own. Eventually, though, Mirage spoke up.

"It's funny," he quietly murmured.

"What's funny?" I asked.

Mirage sighed, turning to look at her again.

"From the moment you were born, Mother insisted that you would be her successor. She said that she _knew_ that you would follow her. It made our sisters more than a little upset, and there was much drama about it, sometimes. The Earth term is 'cat-fighting,' I believe."

He chuckled fondly, and Swoop smiled wistfully at what was apparently for him a happy memory, for all that she didn't share it.

"She also insisted," Mirage continued, "that you would be a flier, despite the fact that _none_ of the rest of us were." He paused, giving Swoop a speculative look. "It turns out," he concluded, "that she was right. On both counts."

"Maybe she was psychic," Swoop said sadly.

"If she was," Mirage responded bitterly, with a quiet snort, "she must have had a huge blind spot in her abilities because she _completely_ missed what was looming on the horizon."

"Maybe she just didn't want to see it," Swoop answered quietly.

Mirage sighed. It was a long sigh, mournful.

"I think," he said, "that it was more a case of over-confidence, of thinking herself invulnerable. She thought that she had the warriors completely under her thumb, and she couldn't imagine them…turning on her like they did."

"Like dogs," Swoop whispered.

"What?" Mirage asked, regarding her in confusion, blinking at her.

"Some humans teach dogs to be vicious. They train them to fight by abusing them," she explained. "But they've been known to snap and turn on their trainers. And sometimes the trainers die as a result."

Mirage nodded thoughtfully.

"You might have something there," he whispered. He was quiet again for a long time after that. And then, rather unexpectedly, he leaned toward Swoop, his expression suddenly intense and his tone of voice quietly urgent as he said, "Look, Swoop… Whatever else you read about her and no matter what anyone else tells you about her, no matter how horrible it is…_Never_ doubt that my – _our_ mother loved you. And never doubt that, had it been within her power to do so, she would have protected you. _Especially_ you."

Swoop stared at him, not knowing quite what to say.

And then Mirage added, "And never doubt that, now, if it's within _my_ power to do so, I will protect you. I won't…I won't fail you again."

"Again?" she questioned, confused. "Mirage, you've never failed me. You've practically never known that I existed."

"Oh, but I did fail you, Swoop," he answered. "Before you were you. Do you know why I was half-way around Cybertron when the uprising happened?"

Swoop blinked at him, taken aback by what seemed to be an abrupt change of subject.

"No," she answered simply.

"It's so very cliché, but…Mother and I had an argument. What it was about really isn't important anymore. It was trivial, but you see we had a special talent for turning trivial disagreements into gigantic arguments, she and I. So…I left. Stormed out. Went hunting, actually, with some inappropriate but very close friends of mine. I was having a _grand_ time, completely oblivious, while the rest of you were…were…hunted. And then…slaughtered. If I had been there—"

"You would have been one more lamb for the slaughter," Swoop assured him quietly, sympathetically. "That's all."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Sometimes…" Mirage almost whispered, his head bowing as if in shame, his body shaking slightly as memory flooded him. "I often thought that death would have been preferable. When I came back, saw what was left, saw the bodies, made arrangements for them, it… Yes, death would have been preferable."

"Death is _never_ preferable, Mirage," Swoop insisted quietly, and before she fully realized what she was doing, she found herself reaching out to him, softly and comfortingly stroking the back of his head. She couldn't help it; she'd always been tactile that way, seeking to comfort with touch. In response, Mirage shuddered and then raised his head to stare at Swoop, eye-to-eye, his expression questioning, and she pulled her hand away from him as if she'd been burned. "Everything happens for a reason," she said quietly, simply to him.

Mirage snorted at that, straightening up abruptly and then leaning back in his seat.

"If that's the case," he said bitterly, "then Primus is a sadistic bastard."

Swoop shrugged at that.

"Maybe," she said. "Or maybe it's just that sometimes drastic change is necessary so that lessons can be learned."

Mirage snorted again.

"Well," he said, "I learned what it's like to be alone and to fend for myself, that's for sure. It wasn't a pleasant lesson."

"I'm sure it wasn't," Swoop answered. "But you aren't alone anymore, Mirage," she told him seriously, reaching over to lay a hand over one of his. "I may not be completely up to speed yet. In fact, I don't know that I'll _ever_ be completely up to speed, but…I'm here."

He smiled at that, a small smile that was sad and hopeful at the same time.

"Indeed you are," he said softly. "It is truly a miracle," he whispered. Then he turned his hand over under hers, entwined their fingers, and then gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. "So!" he said, changing the subject. "Why don't you show me what you've been looking at, and I'll tell you what _really_ happened?"

Swoop gave Mirage a sidelong look, understanding that he'd decided that he'd done enough soul-baring for one evening, and she had no desire to push him farther. She still didn't know quite what to make of him, but she had gained a few insights that she hadn't had before, and he had actually given her a bit of good advice.

They had a long road ahead of them, she and Mirage, but at least it seemed that they were actually on a road now instead of blindly thrashing around in the wilderness searching for one. It was, Swoop reflected, a start. Now they just needed to see where the road led.

* * *

_I want to offer my apologies to anyone who might have an OC named Eclipse. I'm sure I've seen the name bopping around the fandom more than a few times, but I assure you that no "stealing" is intended. I suck mightily at inventing TF names, but I needed a previous name for Swoop, something that evoked the heavens, and it was just the first thing that popped into my head. So, that's what went down on "paper." The name is more or less a throw-away, so don't let it worry you too much if it's a name that you use. I've changed basically everything else about Swoop in this story, but I'm __**not**__ changing her name! *laughs*_

_Review replies!_

_**Ayngel**__: Hey, you, you corrupting-me-with-Mirageness-person. ;) Yes! Thundercracker is awesomeness. And Megs is pissed. And I'm not done with either of them yet. But they're just a bit waterlogged, at the moment. ;) Starscream is indeed very creatively destructive, and he seems to prefer large-scale destructiveness. He's not a person to do anything by halves, methinks…_

_But yeah, Swoop will make good mum material, I think. She's had excellent role models in that department. But that's __**if**__ I can ever get her to that point. *rolls eyes* Hey, if nothing else, she has four built-in babysitters. (Yeah, Dinobots as baby-sitters. The world as we know it might not survive… ;) ) But seriously, she is growing in awesome directions in my head. She's…mutable without being malleable, I guess is a good way to put it. Her thinking is flexible, but she's stubborn enough that she's not easily manipulated or swayed when she has her mind set on a certain course of action. And she can adapt well to just about any situation and generally keep her head without freaking out. These are qualities which will definitely serve her well, in the future…_

_**Carmilla**__: Well, "tomorrow afternoon" is next, so you won't have __**too**__ long to wait. I'm slowing down the rate at which I'm posting chapters a bit because I decided on a completely different ending – I have two different possibilities, actually – for this story, and now I need more time to finish it. *laughs* First I have to decide which possibility to use, though…_

_**Starfire**__: Swoop's no dummy, no. In my mind, none of the Dinobots is a complete moron. It's pretty obvious if you read my stories about them, I guess. *laughs* But I've always portrayed Swoop as the smartest Dinobot. I tend to see him/her as quite intuitive, but accurately so, able to deduce what turns out to be truth from little supporting evidence. So, she/he makes intuitive leaps, but they often turn out to be right. Should I ever toss the two of them together in a situation, I'm thinking this tendency would drive Prowl completely insane. XD As for whether or not her and Ratchet's theory is right…Well, they have pieces of the truth. Just not all of it yet. :)_

_**Shadir**__: Yeah, I really do see Ratchet more as a father figure, not just of the Dinobots but of all the Autobots, in a way. I think too many people portray him as just a little too crazy. He's a doctor, so really, he's not going to go around beating people with wrenches. To me, he's grumpy from time to time and __**very**__ cynical, but he's not __**mean**__. And, yes, I see him as very much the protective father, especially toward Swoop, since she's his protégé. _

_Annnnnnd, of course, thanks to those people who are watching and faving this story. It's most gratifying. :)_

_**Next time:**__ Awakenings, reunions, and…oh dear. Also? N00bs! ;)_


	12. 10: Reconciliation

_Welp, I decided how this story's gonna end. But…GAH! This part gave me utter fits. It needed quite a bit of re-write to accommodate elements needed for the new plotline and ending, and I had a hell of a time with it for some reason. I don't really know why. Just did. So much so that I had to put it aside for a while and just let it sit and stew in my head for quite a while. This was originally in Starscream's POV and was originally a lot different. And a lot shorter. *laughs* But it became stilted when I reworked it and…UGH! So I changed it to Swoop's perspective, but that didn't really work, either. Really, I needed elements from both viewpoints. So then I decided to split the chapter into two sections and change "narrator" at the break. That __**still**__ didn't work because then it felt too rehash-y, and that kind of weighed things down and…UGH!_

_So, after taking four different stabs at this part of the story, my ultimate solution…was to completely rewrite the chapter __**again**__, this time in 3__rd__ person. (Which is what this whole story __**should**__ be in anyway, given what it's evolved into from its humble initial concept, but that's beside the point .Maybe one day I'll entirely rewrite it.) So…uh, sorry? Both for the switch in narrative voice (again) and for the huge delay. Blame Starscream. I always do._

_On the bright side…Well, since this chapter gave me fits and I had to walk away from it multiple times, I worked on other chapters. So I've got a good number of chapters after this one all set to go. Plus…uh…*cough*…four other short stories in this continuity, all of them done. Everything else was coming to me nicely, especially "future" stuff, but this chapter…? Not so much. SO not so much. *grumblegrowl* But…I'm through with wrestling with it, for better or worse. Now that it's done I could more-or-less easily switch it all back to 1__st__ person, but…meh. Deal with it. :) Anyway, after all that rewriting, it became long, so you're actually going to get it in three, possibly four chapters, just so it's not an overwhelmingly long read. I'll upload it all over the next few days.  
_

_Anyway, as always, my deepest thanks go out to those of you reading, watching, and especially commenting on this story. It flabbergasts me that more than 30 people have put this crack on alert, as I thought it would have __**very**__ limited appeal, but it truly does warm my heart. And it makes me feel somewhat less of a weird-o for coming up with all this crazy stuff in the first place, knowing that there are weird-os out there who like it well enough to keep track of it, at least. *laughs* Again, my apologies for the wait. I sincerely hope that doesn't happen again. But even if it does, rest assured that I __**am**__ committed to finishing this story. Because, all frustration with this part aside, this AU is __**very**__ fun for me. Just to let you know, we're about half-way through this story. I __**think**__ it's going to be 22 chapters besides the notes and the prologue. Maybe 24. It depends on if/how I break up the climax…_

_

* * *

_

Swoop was perched cross-legged on top of the bank of supply cabinets that lined one wall of the treatment room, leaning back against the wall behind her and frowning at the datapad that she held in her hand. She glanced back and forth between the small device and Starscream laid out on the berth close by, close enough that she could touch him if she just reached out her hand. She was trying and largely failing to comprehend exactly what the pad was telling her. With a sigh, she dragged her attention away from the datapad, and, not surprisingly, she found that a moment later her attention was settled, all unconsciously, on Starscream's still and silent form, staring at him.

Swoop was absolutely certain now that Starscream was still imprinted on her. Her certainty arose not from any tests or comparisons that she could or would run but simply because she'd found that, whenever she was around Starscream, even though he was offline and unconscious, she felt…something. Some shivery _something_ tugging at her. It was faint, but it was definitely there. And it was familiar, too, like a faded echo of the undeniable and gravity-like pull that she'd felt toward him before their encounter in Bolivia. And the closer she was to him now, the stronger the tug became. Now, in the same small room with him, it was hard not to constantly touch him, not to run her hands over him as if to reassure herself that he was there. She found herself doing so, often, if she wasn't careful to keep herself focused otherwise. It unsettled her. If she felt this way when he was offline, she truly couldn't imagine what she'd feel when they brought him back online later. Nor could she imagine what _he_ would feel, since the tugging on him was apparently far stronger than it was on her, strong enough that he'd been begging for it to end, even perhaps welcoming death if it meant that it would end. For that reason if nothing else, Swoop was almost afraid to bring Starscream online again, even though she wanted – _needed_ – answers.

Still, Swoop could not deny that the closer she was to Starscream, the more…contented she felt. There was no other word for it. Even the infant sparks within her, ready to be taken from her and put into stasis any day now, seemed more settled and calm when she was nearer to Starscream. They seemed to stop jerking about as much, to stop bumping up against each other and against her own consciousness in often annoying-to-each-other ways that sent strong and unsettling surges of energy skittering through Swoop's systems at the most inconvenient of times.

All of this, in Swoop's opinion, was conclusive evidence that supported her theory that the imprint had not dissolved far better than the results of any mere scan ever could. She accepted her conclusion as true without giving it any further thought, even though Ratchet still wasn't convinced. The question remained, though: _Why_ did the imprint still exist? So far as Swoop had read, it shouldn't. She could find not a _single_ case, in carefully-preserved records dating back hundreds of thousands of years, to the time of her many-times-over-great-grandmother, of an imprint overstaying its welcome, much less its necessary and intended purpose. So, there was something very strange going on here, and there were, so far as Swoop was concerned, only three possibilities as to why: the answer to the situation could lie with her, with Starscream, or with the particular combination of the two of them together.

If it was the first possibility…Well, that didn't bode well at all. She would, over the course of her lifetime, experience _thousands_ of cycles, and if she drove her partner crazy like this every time… She shuddered at the thought. Definitely not good. On the bright side, though…Swoop was fairly convinced that the answer to the situation lay in one of – or perhaps both of – the latter two possibilities. Because there was _definitely_ something odd about Starscream, beyond the obvious odd things.

She'd hardly been able to recharge the previous night. The combination of the things she'd learned during the many hours she'd ended up spending talking with Mirage and the questions about Starscream, specifically about the peculiar damage to his spark chamber, had served to plague her thoughts, steadfastly refusing to be quieted. Eventually, she'd entirely given up the effort to sleep and had simply gone back to the medbay, many hours before her scheduled duty shift. She didn't care about the lost sleep, though. She needed some answers.

Which led her back to the datapad that she still held loosely in one hand. Tearing her gaze away from Starscream's peacefully unconsciousness face, she returned her attention to the pad. The results of the tests and simulations she'd run during the course of the wee hours of the night bore out that which, really, she had already known: The only way to produce the kind of damage that she'd discovered on Starscream's spark chamber was to infuse the spark that the chamber contained with fairly strong bursts of energy, and that just didn't make any sense. In general, the easiest way to kill a member of their species was to direct a massive energy burst, with an energy weapon or otherwise, directly into the individual's spark. The only exception to that rule was…well, Swoop herself. Her spark could accept massive inputs of energy and either harmlessly disperse the excess energy through her systems if she wasn't in cycle, or otherwise assimilate the energy and use it to produce new offspring sparks. This specialization was, indeed, what made her a queen. Of her entire species, she alone had this ability.

Except that, apparently, Starscream had it, too. Swoop somehow, perhaps instinctively, doubted that he had the ability to reproduce as she did, but his spark could indeed accept energy inputs without it killing him. Without it even _damaging_ him, really, except for the casing damage, and that was certainly fixable. He could do this, apparently, as easily – albeit as painfully – as she could. Swoop had thought, at first, that perhaps he simply possessed an unusually-insulating spark chamber, but she'd quickly determined that that wasn't the case. Rather, he simply possessed an unusual _spark_, able to do almost exactly what hers could do. And it wasn't inconceivable to Swoop that this was why the imprint had not dissolved. Perhaps their sparks were too similar, and this had caused some sort of strange reaction between the two of them during the energy infusion that he'd given her.

Swoop shook her head, trying to focus, her gaze involuntarily straying to Starscream again.

She could not, for the life of her, comprehend how it might have happened that Starscream had ended up having this very odd thing in common with her. She wondered if it was something that had been done _to_ Starscream, some sort of modification that had perhaps been inspired by or even perhaps reverse-engineered from royal-caste physiology. The thought was greatly disturbing, but it almost made a certain amount of sense as well; developing such a thing would have been a project right up the Decepticons' alley. In fact, such a project would have been right up _Starscream's_ alley, specifically. It certainly made Starscream _very_ hard to kill, and that would be a distinct advantage to Starscream personally and to the Decepticons in general. On the other hand, if that was the case, then certainly it would have been done to _all_ of the Decepticons, or at least to a number of them. And that just didn't seem to be the case, since, other than Starscream, they seemed to be killed as often and as easily as Autobots were.

So maybe it was something that had just happened. Some freak event. Even something evolutionary, perhaps. And if _that_ was the case, Swoop found herself wondering if Starscream himself was even aware of his ability, his nigh-immortality. And _then_ she found herself wondering if it was a trait that could be passed down… Her hand, of its own volition, moved up to stroke thoughtfully at her chest then, tapping against her armor absently, her mind settling into contemplating possibilities.

Swoop's meandering thoughts were interrupted, long minutes later, when she realized that someone was knocking lightly on the treatment room's locked door. Craning her head around so that she could see through the small window by the door, she saw that it was Wheeljack. He had a Seeker wing slung over his shoulder, and he didn't look happy. Sighing, Swoop reached over and tapped at the panel by the door, entering the unlock code and silently gesturing for Wheeljack to enter.

Wheeljack stomped into the room, dumped the dull grey, unbranded wing on the floor, and propped it up against the wall. Straightening, he muttered something under his breath that Swoop couldn't quite catch and then unceremoniously and wordlessly turned around again, obviously quite intent on leaving immediately now that he'd made his final delivery. Swoop sighed again and then reached out to lay a hand on his arm, hoping to forestall his departure.

They'd been avoiding each other. It had started shortly after the threat of her dying had lifted and then had only greatly and quickly intensified with Starscream's arrival and with Swoop's insistence on working on him, on helping him. Swoop was no idiot; it was obvious that Wheeljack was angry with her. She thought that even now he'd ignore her effort to keep him from storming away.

But this time, Wheeljack halted his departure. He turned. He stared at her almost expectantly. Under his scrutiny, Swoop wasn't entirely sure what to say for a moment. So, she said the only thing that occurred to her.

"Please talk to me," she said quietly.

Wheeljack's eyes narrowed, his expression displeased, and then he angled a wary glance at Starscream.

"He can't hear you," Swoop assured him. "Please, Wheeljack."

"What do you want me to say?" Wheeljack asked as he dragged his distasteful gaze away from the inert Seeker. His voice entirely lacked its usual, jovial warmth, and Swoop shuddered for its loss.

"You're angry at me," she answered, unfolding her legs and sliding down from her perch on the supply cabinets. Standing a few paces away from him, she looked up into Wheeljack's face earnestly.

"I'm not angry at you," Wheeljack protested flatly, without inflection, but his words rang false even in his own audios, much less in Swoop's.

"Don't lie to me," she said firmly. "Tell me. Tell me so that…so that I can fix whatever I did. I don't like it that you're angry at me," she added in a small voice.

"You can't fix it, Swoop," Wheeljack answered, his voice slightly and involuntarily rising. "What's done is done."

"This is about him, then?" Swoop inferred, jerking her head at Starscream.

"No," Wheeljack countered, "this is about _you_."

Swoop frowned, not understanding. And then Wheeljack, his brow fiercely creased with a scowl, reached out and snatched at her forearm. The one that was attached to the hand that had unconsciously taken to stroking up and down Starscream's forearm.

"_Look_ at yourself!" he cried, shaking her own hand in her face. "How can you _not_ _hate_ _him_?! How can you be so…so _OK_ with what happened to you? So OK that you do _this_ now," he finished, shaking her arm again.

Swoop reared back from him, jerking her arm out of his grasp with a scowl of her own. Anger was rising in her, too, now that she knew that Wheeljack was displeased with her for reasons that were entirely unjustified, now that she knew that she had done nothing wrong, nothing to truly earn disapproval.

"Maybe it's because I had no choice in the matter," she answered quietly at first, but she found that her decibel level rose, defensively, as she continued. "Maybe it's because I know that _he_ had no choice in the matter, either. Or here's an idea: Maybe it's because I'm fragging _glad_ it was him! You ever think of _that?_ Huh?"

Wheeljack just stared at her, narrow-eyed; he couldn't remember ever seeing Swoop so angry. So vehement. And the question on his mind was obvious even with his limited expression.

"If it had been _anyone_ here," Swoop growled, anger still simmering as she answered Wheeljack's unspoken question, "it would have been horrible. Afterwards, I mean. I don't know what I'll do when it happens again."

"Swoop—" Wheeljack tried to interrupt, his voice and his demeanor softening quickly when he detected the fear underscoring her words, but she continued to speak over him, if she'd even heard him at all.

"It's so _humiliating_," she was saying, the words pouring out of her, anger slowly bleeding out of her. "You have no _idea_ how humiliating it is. It makes you do things you don't want to do with someone you don't want to do it with, someone you don't even _know_, and when I even _begin_ to think about it happening again…" She shuddered, then added, "If I'd grown up royal, Wheeljack, I would have been _praying_ that this didn't happen to me. But it did. But somehow, having it happen with Starscream…That, I can deal with. Because I _don't_ have to face him every single day. He isn't one of _us_…and somehow that just makes it all so much easier."

Wheeljack could only stare at her, suddenly feeling like the universe's biggest jerk. He'd thought – Everyone had thought, really – that Swoop was handling things so well, but he'd just discovered that if one merely pricked lightly at the surface of her composure it shattered and fell away, suddenly revealing the terrified and bewildered child behind the façade. _His_ _own_ terrified and bewildered child, no less.

He'd completely missed the emotional implications of Swoop's status and of the things that it had forced and would in the future again force her to do. He'd assumed that the fact that it had been Starscream that she had…needed…would have been as repulsive to her as the mere thought of it was to him when, really, it had strangely made the situation much easier for her. He had not taken that into account, and he'd been angry at _her_ because of it. Wheeljack imagined that being angry at his own kid because of his own insensitivity was _way_ up there on the scale of ultimate jerkiness,

"Oh, Swoop," he murmured, suddenly and thoroughly chastened, his shoulders slumping. "Primus, sweetie, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize... I thought…"

She gave him a hard look, golden eyes glittering at him. It served to silence him.

"You thought that I have feelings for him now or something," she surmised.

Wheeljack nodded.

"And the thought of that just…" he said apologetically. "And now you touch him, and…"

"I know," she answered quietly, her own shoulders slumping now. "It's the imprint. It's still there, and if I don't pay attention to what I'm doing, it just…happens. I can't seem to help it, but it doesn't mean anything. But I'm afraid of what will happen when I wake him up. And I'm just afraid of what's going to happen to me, period."

Wheeljack approached her then, close enough to be able to see the shudders that were passing through her small body every now and then. Without thinking about it, he reached out to her, pulling at her and gathering her into his arms. She neither protested nor resisted, instead snuggling in as closely as possible against him, resting her cheek over his spark and listening to its slow and always-comforting pulse, just as she'd done all her life when something was upsetting her. It was a privilege that only she had had since she was the only Dinobot small enough to fit into Wheeljack's lap, and she had many warm, fuzzy memories of drifting off into recharge while snuggled against him, listening to the pulse of his spark and wrapped in his arms as if they were living blankets. Now, her body shook uncontrollably; it happened often when she was alone now, without having to put up a front, when she found herself considering the larger and quite overwhelming implications of her status.

"It's OK," Wheeljack comforted her, just as he had done when she'd been a few months old, when she'd been just as bewildered as she was right now, only in a different way and for different reasons. He worked his arms around her wings so that he could stroke her back gently, and he rocked her slowly back and forth, as if she was still that bewildered newborn. "It'll be OK, little bit," he whispered. "We'll figure it all out, I promise."

And somehow, just as she always did, Swoop believed Wheeljack's promise. Because somehow, some way, he always seemed to manage to make good on them.


	13. 11: Reunion

_Yay! I finally get to inject Prowl into this story! *is shot* I've already figured out his backstory in this AU, and I fully intend to go "back in time" and write it. But in this story…just hints. Sorry. :)_

_Sorry also for the delay on this. I could have __**sworn**__ that I uploaded this before, but obviously I didn't. :) My bad._

_

* * *

  
_

Voices were floating around Starscream in layers of mysterious and indistinct murmurings. The words were initially indecipherable, but as time passed, they began to occasionally resolve into intelligible but random words. And then the murmuring voices slowly became distinct from each other, and as they became distinct, they also started to become individually recognizable.

One of them, Starscream realized, was _hers_; he'd been hearing her voice in his head for so long now that it was almost as familiar to him as his own. Yet even as he listened to her voice, listened to the timbre of it, the rhythm of it, picking out intelligible words here and there, Starscream was still eighty-five percent certain that it existed only in own head. The fraction of uncertainty that he harbored stemmed from the fact that her voice was suddenly somehow soothing rather than utterly maddening. It felt closer to him, too. More immediate. Less like a distant and indistinct echo of a dream that only faintly reached his senses. It was stronger than it had ever been, and he half-unwillingly clung to it, wrapped himself in it as he drifted back down into the warm unconsciousness that was still pawing at him.

Some indeterminate amount of time passed, and when Starscream next staggered toward consciousness, the voices were still there, clearer now. Some of them were different, some the same. _She_ was still there, and it slowly became very apparent to Starscream, as he recognized another voice, that this time she was quietly speaking with Ratchet. His processors were moving at a speed at which they might have cause to envy the speed of glaciers, but he managed to wonder why he would be hearing her talking with Ratchet in his head, particularly because he could hear _both_ voices, both sides of the exchange between them. He seemed to be the subject of discussion, however; he'd heard his name mentioned a few times, before he'd been able to comprehend anything else that they'd been saying. He was fairly certain that the mentions of his name were what had again roused him from the happy but thickly-drugged stupor in which he'd been floating. While he'd become rather used to Swoop's voice in his head, Ratchet being in there was entirely new and not exactly welcome.

Starscream tried to move then and even managed to succeed at the task somewhat, only to discover that he was restrained. The restraints were not excessively tight, but they were tight enough that it was a one hundred percent certainty that he wasn't going to be getting off the berth that he was apparently lying on, particularly not in his only marginally-coherent state. The restraints added a level of realism to what may or may not have been a hallucination. One was usually not restrained in one's psychotic delusions, so either his psychosis was becoming even more dubiously creative or…or maybe it wasn't a hallucination. He decided that some optical input might be helpful.

Lights that were far too bright and a veritable sea of nauseating orange greeted him. He would never understand the Autobots' fascination with the color…

…Wait, Autobots? The thought was enough to trigger bleary recollections of recent events, which ran through Starscream's mind with dizzying speed and in somewhat jumbled order. If he was not currently hallucinating, then he had actually managed to accomplish his goal of reaching Autobot Headquarters. He didn't remember much of the flight, and perhaps that was just as well; he had faint but firm impressions that it had been extremely difficult to remain aloft at times.

Starscream tried to say something then, but the only thing that emerged from him was a dull syllable that sounded faintly like, "Muh?" But the incoherent sound was enough to attract the attention of the two medics, whose faces were suddenly floating above him. Starscream only cared about one of them, and he focused solely and narrowly on her.

Biting his lip in focused concentration, Starscream lifted his arm. He was fairly certain that there was enough slack in the restraint to allow him to rest the palm of his hand flat against Swoop's chest as she leaned over him. He moved to do so…and then he became vaguely aware that this caused some sort of commotion to occur in the small room that he was occupying. He turned his head toward the noise, squinting in an effort to see past the fuzziness, and recognized those infernal Lamborghinis, apparently here in case he decided to cause some mayhem. Not that he would have minded causing some mayhem…but he was truly not up to the task, at least not at the moment. Apparently Ratchet realized this because he saw the medic make a gesture to stay the twins' approach. So then Starscream did what he wanted to do, laying his hand against Swoop's chest. In response, she laid one of her hands over his, pressing his hand more firmly against herself as if she knew what he wanted. What he needed.

And he felt it, then. Her spark, its energy pulsing steadily and strongly through her armor; he could feel its energy against his hand, feel its rhythm, dimly recognized that it seemed to match his own. But there were echoes of other pulses in there, too. Weaker, fainter, and Starscream blearily recognized that she was still carrying offspring sparks. Sparks that he had helped to create. He bit down harder on his lip then, not knowing exactly what to think about that, particularly not in his current state of stupor. But the warmth and solidity of her and the softly shining smoothness of her armor under his hand were tangible and undeniably, reassuringly real. The pull that he felt toward her, strong even through the persistent fog that plagued him, was yet another sign.

She was real, Starscream decided. Most definitely real. And he most definitely wanted her, oh yes. But…he couldn't follow through with the want right now. He couldn't follow through with _anything_ right now. Instead, Starscream let out a long, steadying breath that he hadn't realized that he'd been holding.

"Real," he murmured, patting Swoop's chest approvingly, although he was appalled at the weakness of his own voice. And then his arm flopped weakly back against the berth. It, too, was weak. _He_ was weak, too much so even to keep his arm raised any longer. Too much so to do anything.

"Yes," Swoop murmured back, meanwhile. "I'm real. You came here, asked for me. I shot you down."

Starscream nodded faintly once, the slight movement making his world go instantly and nauseatingly blurry.

"I 'member," he said thickly. "Nice shot," he complimented woozily, after a brief moment of reflection, his voice slurring.

Swoop snorted dismissively.

"A human with a BB gun could have shot you down, Starscream," she pointed out. "I'm surprised you made it here."

"Mmmm. Me, too," Starscream agreed. He was…muzzy. And suddenly happy for some reason that his dulled processors couldn't quite pinpoint. He had to fight the urge to laugh madly and, to distract himself if nothing else, he shifted slightly against the berth that he was lying on in an impossible quest to find a more comfortable position. Faint and probably drug-dampened twinges of pain ran through his body in response, and he groaned as his movements set off a wave of nausea that crashed insistently through him.

"Easy there," Swoop murmured softly, reflexively lifting a hand to run it gently and comfortingly over the various crenellations of his head. Her hand was comfortingly cool against him, and her touch seemed to have the power to instantly soothe him, although he suspected that if he wasn't still half-unconscious her touch would have been greatly arousing instead. "It'll take a while for the system suppressants to wear off," Swoop was saying quietly. "Just rest. You need it."

"Mmmm. 'K," Starscream acknowledged faintly. "Such a niiiiice medic," he added dreamily, after a moment's consideration.

The last thing Starscream heard before he drifted off into la la land again was Swoop snorting again, but this time the snort, he realized, was covering up a chuckle.

* * * * * *

When Starscream next awoke, he was about twenty levels higher on the awareness scale and, so his chronometer told him, about eight hours had passed. Swoop was still – or perhaps again – in the room, her back to him at the moment. He studied her for a long moment, silently, so as not to draw attention to himself. He had vague recollections of having noted at some point that she looked different now, and this he was now noting again. Vanity perhaps had compelled this change in her; females usually but not always felt a need to make themselves look different, a reflection of their rarity, or perhaps even an advertisement of it. Whatever had compelled the change in Swoop, though, Starscream found himself approving of it.

She was still the same size, still small and deceptively delicate-looking, but she was more curves than angles now, streamlined where once she had been boxy and cumbersome and, indeed, primitive-looking. Her color scheme was pleasing, and the added gold and subtracted dull grey made her physical form seem to better match her status. She practically glowed, her armor artfully designed to catch the light and then to let it play over the new shiny gold expanses of her body. He could tell that her wings, although they were mostly folded away against her back, no doubt for convenience's sake when maneuvering in small rooms such as this, would be longer than they had been before when fully extended, more back-curved and their tips longer and more tapered. Squinting, he picked out a line of small Cybertronian glyphs, brushed silver inlaid into the shiny gold that her wings now sported. The glyphs limned the leading edge of each wing, following its curve, but they were too small to read from where he was.

He _thought_ that Swoop was real. His imagination and the hallucinations that it created had grown disturbingly convincing as time had passed, but he was inclined to believe that what he was seeing now was a level of detail that would be difficult for even deep psychosis to conjure. Still, he wasn't sure. He had very vague recollections of waking earlier and of determining that Swoop was real at the time…but then he wasn't sure that _that_ memory was real.

He groaned. It was so _frustrating_, existing in this place of uncertainty about absolutely _everything_. He tried to bring his hands up to cover his face with them, but he was still, of course, restrained.

The groan and the movements served to bring Swoop's attention to him, though, as well as the attention of the others in the room. The slight noise that they made as they shifted to alertness was enough to divert Starscream's attention from Swoop…for a moment.

Surprisingly, Prowl was there. Which was, Starscream thought sourly,a true reason to celebrate. A couple of the other Dinobots were there, too. Grimlock and the one with the damned flamethrowers. Their presence meant that there wasn't much space left over in the small room that Starscream inhabited, but it wasn't as if anyone else was needed. It vaguely occurred to Starscream that perhaps he should be flattered. _Three_ Dinobots, plus Prowl, were apparently required to make sure that he behaved himself. And of course he couldn't resist tweaking Prowl. Just a little bit. For old times' sake.

"Well, hello, Prowl," he murmured, trying not to wince at the continued weakness of his voice. "Still having fun slumming with the lowly civils, are we?"

Prowl merely scowled in response, eyes narrowed to thin red slits.

"More fun that you're going to be having, Starscream," he said levelly, smooth voice rumbling low.

"Really?" Starscream responded mildly. He paused dramatically for a moment, then added, "Wait, was that supposed to be some sort of threat? How delightful!"

"Take it in whatever way you wish, Starscream," Prowl answered noncommittally.

"Ah, Prowl," Starscream purred in amusement. "Good to see that some things never change. Megatron sends his warmest regards, by the way. You remember him, yes? Big? Silver? Liked you an _awful_ lot, once upon a time?"

Prowl scowled again, refusing to verbally take the bait, but he did take a threatening step or two toward Starscream's berth, his doorwings raised high with annoyance. _Good old Prowl_, Starscream thought, gleaming a taunting and provocative grin at the tactician.

"Stop it, both of you," Swoop growled, stepping in.

There was deep and _almost_ impressive authority in her voice, and Starscream realized that she was using it to cow Prowl, who gave her a measuring look, surprise subtly flickering over his features…and then he subsided like the good, obedient little warrior that he was. Swoop was obviously learning, then. For all Starscream knew, she had all the warriors in the Autobot ranks kowtowing to her and catering to her every whim by now, just like her predecessor.

Starscream turned his head to look at her then, ignoring the faint sense of dizziness that passed through him as a result. He stared at Swoop, and she met his gaze squarely…and then Starscream found that he couldn't look away from her. Or, more accurately, that he didn't want to look away from her. What he wanted to do was to leap off the berth and shove her against the closest wall and… He gritted his teeth, trying to force such thoughts from his mind, trying to block the images that trailed after the thoughts like dry leaves caught up in a gust of wind, trying to calm himself in the face of her being real and, worse, standing right there, only a couple of meters away from him. So close and yet so far…

Despite his efforts, as if of its own volition, one of his arms started to yank violently at one of the restraints that was tethering him. It didn't give, so he just kept yanking at it, over and over again and with steadily increasing force, until the restraint began to chafe and then bite into his arm. He didn't even feel it.

Involuntarily, Swoop took a step toward Starscream…and then yelped when, unexpectedly, Prowl grabbed hold of her firmly and silently, staying her. He gave the other two Dinobots a curt jerk of his chin toward Starscream. They moved to hold Starscream down, to stop his struggling none-too-gently.

"Careful!" Swoop admonished them. "Don't ruin all my hard work."

Starscream struggled against the grip of the two Dinobots, but even if he hadn't been restrained and had been at one hundred percent – which he wasn't, not by a long shot – he couldn't have pushed them off of him. One Dinobot alone was much stronger than he was. Arguably, _Swoop_, the smallest of them, was stronger than he was, his only advantage over her being that he outweighed her. _Two_ Dinobots against him was…decidedly unfair. Of course, that was why they were there in the first place, to be unfairly overpowering and intimidating. And eventually, because he had no other choice, Starscream surrendered to their superior strength, flopping back against the berth in frustration and panting from exertion. Vague warnings were flashing across his diagnostics about…something. He paid them no mind.

He paid them no mind because Swoop, after shaking off Prowl's grip on her with a displeased scowl and then giving him a vague gesture that clearly said "Stay there," was approaching him. There was an odd look on her face as she moved toward him, as if she suddenly wasn't quite all there. Ducking around Grimlock, she stood at the side of Starscream's berth, her arms folded over her chest, regarding him inquisitively for a long moment. Starscream, held down firmly by Dinobot strength, could only stare helplessly back at her, still panting but not only from exertion now, while everything that he was, every instinct that he possessed, was screaming at him to somehow throw off Swoop's brothers and gather her to him and pull her down on the berth and—

And then Swoop was suddenly leaning down, was suddenly kissing him. It was a hard kiss, and there was longing in it, and as it went on everything – every thought, every possible word that he might utter, every course of action that he might undertake, every desire except one, _everything_ – instantly drained from Starscream. The pressure on his body eased up for some reason – likely because of surprise on the other Dinobots' parts – and he was able to reach up, as much as the tethering restraints allowed, to pull at Swoop, to pull her down toward him. She didn't protest, not for the awkward half-embrace, but she did protest when Prowl abruptly yanked her away.

They said words to each other after that, and Swoop was obviously displeased, scowling severely up at Prowl, but Starscream paid them no mind, barely heard them at all. His processors were too busy reeling, his sensory net tingling with sensation that raced voraciously through him. Rather than easing the want of her, the kiss had made it worse, drowning the more rational voice in his head that wondered why in the world she'd done it. He didn't care. He just wanted…more. He was gathering his strength to struggle against his bonds again, Dinobots be damned, and he was stayed only by a piercing cry that suddenly and quite obviously came from Swoop. He cranked his head over to look at her, alarmed. There was a pained expression on her face, she was gasping for breath, and she had both arms pressed tightly over her chest. And then her entire body jerked and she began to collapse against Prowl, her legs no longer up to the task of supporting her weight.

Prowl called urgently for Ratchet over his comm as Swoop collapsed against him, and he lowered her gently to the floor. Starscream, meanwhile, began to struggle violently, ignoring warnings that flashed across his diagnostics, but this only prompted Grimlock to practically sit on him, while Slag just stared, dumbfounded, at Swoop. Ratchet skidded into the room then, took in the scene for a split-second, and then made a dash for Swoop's side, pausing only to make a quick pit stop at Starscream's berth.

Without a word to the Seeker or to anyone else, Ratchet injected something into one of the lines that were feeding into Starscream's systems, and his world almost instantly began to go black. His ineffectual struggles against the restraints and against Grimlock ceased entirely as his body began to go completely numb. The last thing that he heard was Swoop beginning to utter a constant wail; the wavering note of it seemed to Starscream to go on and on, stretched into infinity, eternity, as he lost consciousness, chasing him down into blackness. The last thought that entered his mind was some entirely absurd notion that he needed to help her, to protect her, that that was his job. But then… Then there was nothing.


	14. 12: Resolve

_OK, so this is the final chapter of what was once the "Single Chapter from Hell." I dragged myself away from the whomping-huge, fanged, rabid bunny that one Jalaperilo sicced on me and fiddled with this some more. And then switched it back to first person; it just "felt better" that way. Don't ask me why. In any case, this whole story is going to need a __**complete**__ rewrite when I'm done to get the narrative voice under control. *laughs* Ah well. ;)_

_Also, it's my birthday today (April 5), but apparently you get the "present."If you can consider this a present, that is. ;) __**I**__ consider it enough of a present that this chapter-that-turned-into-three-chapters is done. Finally._

_Also also, my apologies if with this chapter you find yourself feeling cheated of a "birth scene." It occurs to me that readers might be expecting one, given how I ended the last chapter…but I really had no intention of writing such a thing in this story. Partly because, honestly, I haven't figured out how it would happen but mostly because, overall, such a thing would actually be irrelevant to the plot, such as it is, of the story. That's kind of odd, I guess, but…there it is. I __**am**__ curious, myself, as to how such a thing would go, but I didn't want to get bogged down in thinking about that. Maybe once this story is done, I'll go back and write a little side fic that details the process – If only for my own purposes – once I figure it all out. But for now, to quote Megatron: "Use your imagination!" ;) So, this chapter takes place after all the "birthing" is done._

_**NOTE: **_**_This chapter was updated 1/5/10, mostly as part of the effort to fix this story's overall narrative voice to make it consistently third-person throughout. There may be other minor changes from the original, as well, but nothing plot-significant._**

**_

* * *

_**

_**12: Resolve**_

Ratchet made a beeline for Swoop as soon as she walked into the medbay, a look of both worry and resolve on his face.

"You were right," he said quietly, without preamble, as he handed her a datapad. "As usual."

Swoop frowned down at the pad, for a moment having no idea what Ratchet was talking about. Her thoughts were scattered and distracted. Even after two days of enforced rest, she still felt disoriented and somewhat…empty. She'd gotten rather used to the presence of the offspring sparks, and now that they were gone, all fifteen of them perfect and beautiful and safely in stasis, it was almost as if she was missing them. No, not "almost." She _did_ miss them. Being "alone" again was going to take some getting used to, and she was certain that going back to work would help. Staring at the walls of her quarters for two days certainly hadn't helped one iota.

Ratchet, meanwhile, was continuing to talk to Swoop, while she half-listened to him, selectively picking out the important things that he was telling her. He told her that they'd run some further tests on Starscream during her downtime, the results of which were on the pad that she now held. The tests and scans confirmed to Ratchet's satisfaction what Swoop already knew all too well: that the imprint between she and Starscream still existed. Swoop resisted the urge to laugh and spit an "I told you so" at him, and then her snippiness faded altogether as Ratchet further explained that he'd devised something of a temporary, stopgap solution, completely bypassing certain of Starscream's systems while suppressing others. The "treatment" seemed to make him a little less desperately crazy and much more consistently lucid, but Ratchet acknowledged that the treatment, such as it was, wasn't really good for Starscream in the long term. Really, it was merely buying them some time to come up with a more permanent solution to the problem at hand.

She'd given _that_ particular problem an awful lot of thought during her downtime, since she hadn't had much else to do, and since it had become something of a…concern during those two days. She had come up with an idea, but she wasn't about to let Ratchet know what it was…yet. It would, as the saying went, freak him out. And first, she needed to have a talk with Starscream.

Thanking Ratchet absently, Swoop pulled her own datapad out of its storage compartment in the side of her hip. It still contained the data from the scans that she'd performed on Starscream herself, the ones that had confirmed the unusual nature of Starscream's spark. She appended the data from Ratchet's pad to it, handed the empty pad back to Ratchet, and then headed toward the room where Starscream was now being kept.

They'd moved him to a larger room in her absence, one that was more secure but that had a window. If she were in Starscream's position, she knew that being able to see outside would at least offer some measure of comfort. She was surprised that Ratchet had thought of it…but it didn't even occur to her to be surprised that she knew exactly where Starscream was without asking.

"Where are you going?" Ratchet called after Swoop as she moved purposefully toward Starscream's location.

She paused, turned back to him.

"I need to talk to Starscream," she answered simply, before turning away again to resume her journey.

"Wait!" Ratchet called out. "Not by yourself. I'll—"

She stopped in her tracks again, turned back to face him, glowered at him.

"By. Myself," Swoop insisted, brooking no argument. "What I need to say to him _no one_ else needs to hear. Not even you." At Ratchet's troubled look, she waved her datapad at him meaningfully and added, "He won't hurt me." And then she crossed her arms over her chest defiantly, staring Ratchet down. And he wasn't happy about doing so, but he subsided. "We just need to settle this between us, Ratchet," Swoop said then, far more softly, attempting to mollify him. "That's all."

Ratchet sighed resignedly, silently acquiescing, and Swoop turned away from him again to resume her course.

But as she turned away from him, she heard him murmur, bemusedly, "Sure. That's all. Settle it. Just like that."

Just like that, indeed. Or so she hoped, anyway…

* * *

When Swoop walked into the room, Starscream was sitting on the berth, leaning back against the raised head of it and staring expressionlessly at the opposite wall, deep in thought. Or psychosis. Or something. He wasn't restrained anymore, and while that was somewhat surprising, Swoop supposed that the monitors and feed lines and myriad system bypasses that were attached to him were tethering him almost as well as actual restraints would. And, as she had reminded Ratchet, she knew that he would not hurt her because he would have to be utterly stupid to do so. He needed her.

And Swoop needed him, too. _Wanted_ him.

This was what she had discovered during her two days of enforced rest. During that time, the want had started to consume her, no doubt strengthened by Starscream's proximity, the fact that he was conscious again, and the fact that she was alone again, that she no longer had offspring sparks to protect. Ironically, she hadn't been able to rest much during her days of rest because of the burning, aching want. The need. Swoop realized now that carrying the offspring sparks had suppressed the effects of the imprint on her. Now, it picked at her, poked at her, made her itch and fidget. And it was strengthening quickly, almost by the minute, whispering urgently at her to just go to Starscream, to take him. Have him. It would be so easy, and they _both_ needed it, wanted it.

It was very hard not to heed the call, and Swoop knew – from experience now – that it would only become harder to resist as time passed, until she could no longer resist it at all.

In the meantime, distraction helped. She had engaged in a few games of chess and a spate of fairly intense arguing with Slag over the fact that he had taken to snidely referring to her as "Her Majesty." She had watched a few movies while snuggled up with Sludge and Grimlock. Even just listening while Snarl had read to her something out of some "fascinating" ancient Cybertronian text about the exploits of some distant ancestor of hers had been a welcome distraction. But the distraction was only temporary. The cloud of needful want was always hovering close at hand, simply waiting for the distraction to end so that it could settle over her again and begin to consume her.

It had occurred to Swoop only the day before that this was what had been clawing relentlessly at Starscream for nigh on six weeks now. Her level of sympathy had skyrocketed.

Really, she had to admire Starscream's restraint, his level of self-control. Because hers began to fray as soon as Starscream's full attention settled on her as she walked into his room. His gaze was dull and seemed somewhat unfocused, but it nonetheless sent shivers through her that took effort to suppress. It occurred to her to wonder exactly what Ratchet had done to him. Later, she would ask Ratchet exactly that question. For now, she just had to hope that whatever Ratchet had done could be easily _un_done. But first…

"You are something of scientist, yes?" Swoop asked quietly of Starscream.

Starscream eyed her warily, no doubt wondering if it was safe to answer her innocuous but odd question. He expected to be interrogated, and he was probably not expecting anything civilized in that regard, given who he was. Certain Autobots were indeed chomping at the bit to get their hands on him, and Swoop knew that they had no intention of being gentle with him. But she was equally determined that _no one_ was going to touch him, at least not until she understood what had happened, what was obviously _still_ happening, between them.

So far, her will had prevailed. It was not entirely surprising; Swoop had discovered that her new-found status had some unexpected benefits, all of them conveniently hard-wired into those around her. No one had ever felt a need to pay attention to her, a lowly Dinobot, before, much less to heed her. Now, many of those around her reflexively snapped to obey whenever she asked them to do even small things. It was a heady thing, and she could easily see how such power could become overwhelming with time. She could easily envision even now the long road of temptation and corruption that her mother had traveled, which had ultimately led to her destruction. The very same road lay before Swoop now, and the same curious desire to see exactly how far she could push her fledgling authority nagged at her, but her mother's destruction was a powerful incentive to keep such childish impulses in check.

"Sometimes," Starscream decided to answer Swoop's question then, bringing her back to the here-and-now. His manner was guarded, suspicious, his voice quiet. His attention was focused on her yet somehow detached at the same time, as if he wasn't quite all there. This was, no doubt, the intended effect of Ratchet's cobbled-together treatment of Starscream's condition. "When the situation calls for it," Starscream was adding, "I am probably one of the closest things we have to a scientist. Why?"

Swoop nodded at that, not answering right away. Instead, she toyed with the datapad that she held in her hands, staring down at it, suddenly reconsidering the wisdom of revealing to Starscream the information that it contained. The medic in her knew that he had a right to know everything about himself; the Autobot in her thought that the less he, as a Decepticon, knew about this particular aspect of himself, the better. But then, she argued back with herself, Starscream was quick. Smart. Probably much smarter than they gave him credit for. She was quite certain that he would figure it all out for himself soon enough, especially given recent evidence. And it occurred to Swoop, too, that revealing the information to him would perhaps begin to establish a level of trust between them. She had a strong feeling that they would need mutual trust, among many other things, going forward.

"I thought you might be interested in this," Swoop said simply, approaching Starscream's berth more closely, watching his body stiffen in response to her closer proximity, and then offering him the datapad without any further explanation. "But it's a little technical, so..."

Starscream frowned at her and then at the device that she was offering to him, his gaze flicking between it and her. His eyes were narrowed suspiciously, as if he thought that she might be offering him a ticking bomb, and it was only reluctantly that he reached out and took the pad from her. His fingers brushed hers lightly and incidentally as he did so, and Swoop had to fight to suppress a gasp at the contact, at the sensation almost of electric shock that knifed through her like a lightning bolt. He wasn't able to suppress his similar reaction entirely, and after he snatched the datapad roughly out of her hand, she stepped a few paces back from him. As if that would make some huge difference. As if she hadn't been driving him crazy from thousands of kilometers away, much less a mere meter or two away.

Swoop watched as Starscream began to read the information that the pad displayed. She watched his expression shift rapidly between suspicion, shock, disbelief, and then something like satisfaction as he read and absorbed the information. She knew how he felt, knew well the feeling of satisfaction that arose when all of the confused, scattered, and seemingly unrelated pieces of a puzzle started to come together to make a coherent picture. After he had finished reading, after he'd taken a few moments to digest and assimilate what he'd read, Starscream let out a breath that he'd seemed to be holding for years, if the length and the force of it were any indication.

"This…" he said faintly a moment later, shaking the datapad meaningfully and then tilting his head back to stare up at the ceiling, "explains much." After a considered and somewhat awkward pause, he added, still without looking at Swoop, "Thank you for sharing this with me. I know that you didn't have to do that."

"You're welcome," Swoop answered quietly. She couldn't think of anything else to say to him.

"But there's still one thing that's not quite clear to me," Starscream added then, as if he hadn't heard her. He turned his head to look at her then, his penetrating gaze resting heavily on her. She blinked curiously at him, and when she didn't say anything, he added intensely, leaning toward her, "_Why _are _you_, of all people, a queen? Why did _any_ of this happen in the first place?"

Swoop swallowed uncertainly, took another step back from him, and deliberated for a long moment about telling him the truth. But then, after realizing that there was nothing to be either gained or lost by doing so, she answered quietly, "Because I am apparently my mother's daughter."

"Your…what?" Starscream sputtered, after a few seconds spent gawking at the Dinobot.

Drawing in a steadying breath, she repeated more loudly, more confidently, "My mother's daughter. You once knew me as Eclipse."

Starscream blinked harder at her, disbelievingly now.

"Eclipse," he repeated dully after a long moment of speechlessness. "The infant. But she was…"

"She…_I_ wasn't killed," Swoop said. "Obviously. My spark ended up in stasis somehow, and then the Autobots brought it with them when they left Cybertron. And then when it was time to create me…Well, here I am."

Starscream was still sputtering, though.

"That's…impossible," he protested weakly, staring at Swoop as if he was incapable of looking away from her, as if someone had riveted his gaze to her face. "Royal sparks can't be transplanted, so you can't be..."

"And yet, here I am," Swoop repeated, flippantly this time, when his voice trailed off. Despite herself, a grin was tugging at her; Starscream's stunned expression, his eyes wide and his mouth cycling from open to closed like a landed fish, was greatly amusing.

"Are you…certain?" Starscream asked dazedly – more so than the revelation warranted, Swoop thought, and she wondered why – once he'd found his voice again.

"As certain as we can be," Swoop answered with a shrug. "There are great similarities between my spark and Mirage's, at the very least. And nothing else really makes sense. I suppose I might not be Eclipse, maybe one of the others, but—"

A bark of humorless laughter escaped Starscream then, interrupting what had devolved into babbling. And Swoop realized that maybe the interruption was a good thing; she'd been blithely telling him things that perhaps she shouldn't have been saying at all. She stared at Starscream, wondering at his reaction.  
"Oh, you are most _certainly_ Eclipse!" Starscream declared with utter certainty, his face twisted into a smirk that Swoop couldn't quite interpret. "And I must say that the irony of _that_ is absolutely _delicious_."

Swoop blinked at him as he continued to snicker madly.

"I…don't understand," she confessed.

"Of course you don't!" Starscream answered flippantly, still chuckling. "But maybe someday you will. Maybe someday, if you're very good, I'll even tell you."

Swoop resisted the urge to demand that he tell her right now, resisting because, if nothing else, she wasn't entirely sure that she wanted to know. She'd had enough surprises and revelations over the course of the last couple of months. She really didn't think that she could handle too many more.

Swoop couldn't think of anything to say to Starscream, though, so a silence settled between them. It was a silence that wasn't necessarily comfortable, heavily charged as it was. Starscream was still staring at Swoop, sizing her up now as if he was a starving lion and she a gravely-wounded wildebeest. She tried to drag her gaze away from his but discovered that, for some reason, she couldn't. And as they stared at each other, Swoop felt a heat building in herself, and it was suddenly all she could do not to go to him, to touch him, to…

Vaguely, it occurred to her that she should leave because being so close to him for any extended period of time was probably not the best of all possible ideas, not for her and certainly not for him. She was just turning to make good her escape when Starscream finally decided to speak up, almost as if he didn't want her to leave.

"So!" he said. "You are the genuine article, then. Not some freak, miraculous mutation."

"Yes," Swoop answered faintly, halting her retreat and turning slowly back to him, inevitably but not completely willingly meeting his gaze. "I am who I am supposed to be. At least, that's what everyone tells me."

"Mmmm," Starscream murmured noncommittally, nodding. "And I am," he added after a moment, waving the datapad meaningfully in the air, "immortal."

"Not exactly _immortal_," Swoop qualified. "But definitely harder to kill than most, at least when it comes to energy input directly into the spark. You're like me that way, actually, since you seem to be enjoying irony so much today."

Starscream snorted, staring at her curiously and intently.

"Do you think it possible," he asked, "that this is why the imprint hasn't gone away? Because we have this…similarity?"

"Maybe," she answered diffidently, with an uncertain shrug. "That's one hypothesis, anyway," she added, smiling at him faintly.

"And if you're right," he said, tilting his head to the side as a thought occurred to him, "then it's not _going_ to go away." His gaze drilled into her, demandingly, as he added, "I'll be stuck here, with you medics doing Primus-knows-what to my systems to keep me from…from…"

Swoop bit down hard on her lower lip as his voice trailed off, as he turned his face away from her to stare almost longingly out of the window.

She answered him honestly, "I don't know, Starscream. There's no precedent for this, so I _can't_ know. It…might not go away, no. But…But I did have a thought on that."

He turned his gaze back to her then, leveling a penetrating and inquisitive look on her, and Swoop could have sworn that his eyes were suddenly glowing a brighter red as he narrowed them at her, his expression calculating.

"Do tell," he cooed.

Swoop swallowed nervously, hesitating, while Starscream just watched her, expectantly. The look on his face pulled at her, and she found herself taking a few involuntary steps toward him. Starscream, unmoving, simply continued to stare at her, and then words began to tumble out of her mouth, as if their own volition.

"When we were…together," she said, suddenly nervous, "there were…things that were wrong with me."

Starscream gave her a twisted, ironic smile as he answered, "There were things _wrong_ with both of us that night, Swoop."

"_Besides_ that," she said quietly, ducking her head in embarrassment. "My spark was…It was rejecting my body. As you said, royal sparks aren't supposed to be transplanted, and things started to go crazy. So when I came back here, my systems started crashing and…I almost died, _would_ have died if..."

"Hence the new body?" Starscream concluded as her voice trailed off uncertainly, his expression curious, his head tilted slightly to the side as he regarded her. "Not just a vanity thing after all then, eh?"

Swoop blinked at him.

"No," she said. "No, not at all. I just…woke up with it. It was designed and built to be compatible with my spark and with my…my function. That it's prettier than my old one is just a fringe benefit," she added lightly, forcing a smile.

Starscream nodded, smiling faintly in return as he digested what she'd told him.

"So," he said a moment later, "you nearly died. And I went crazy because the imprint didn't go away. And you think that it happened that way because of your…troubles, combined with our odd…similarities."

Swoop nodded.

"That's my theory, yes," she said quietly.

"And your proposed solution?" Starscream asked after a moment of silence between them, his voice suddenly intense and his gaze burning into Swoop, _heating_ her. "Assuming, of course, that it isn't the same one that Ratchet is subjecting me to."

The intensity of his stare pulled at her, and Swoop found herself approaching him yet more closely, this time going so far as to settle herself on the very edge of his berth, extremely close to him but still not touching him. Even so, Starscream's breath hitched and then quickened, and a noticeable shiver ran through his body, but he otherwise held himself in check, his hands balling into fists with the effort.

Lowering her voice, as if she was afraid that someone would overhear, Swoop leaned dangerously close to Starscream, so that they were eye-to-eye, faces mere inches apart, and murmured, "I think that we need to repeat the experiment. Maybe then things will reset as they're supposed to."

Starscream stared at her for a long moment, his gaze bright and locked with hers. His limbs twitched as he fought to keep them still.

"Except," he said, his voice shuddering as more shivers ran through him, "that we still have that similarity, so it might not—"

"But it _might_," she interrupted him insistently. "And it can hardly make things worse. At worst, it will give you – _both_ of us – some peace for a little while."

"Until it starts all over again," Starscream retorted with a quiet snort. His voice was low, but the bitterness in it was obvious.

"Yes," Swoop answered matter-of-factly.

"And _then_ what?"

"And _then_…Another treatment, so to speak," she said, running one finger delicately down the center of his canopy, her eyes following and absorbing its path as it went.

Starscream went utterly and unexpectedly still. Swoop looked up into his face again to see shocked curiosity reigning supreme there.

"You would do that?" he asked after a moment spent staring incredulously at her. "For me?"

"Yes," she said again. Solemnly. Without hesitation. "But not just for you. For me, too. At the questioning look he gave her, she explained, "You're not alone in this, Starscream. It's just been much worse for you. But now that the little ones are gone and you're here, it's getting worse for me, too. Very quickly."

"Oh," he breathed, blinking at her. Almost as if he was experimenting, he reached tentatively toward her and ran a hand lightly down her arm, barely making contact.

At the contact, Swoop gasped. His touch, light as it was, hesitant as it was, sent shocks firing through her. They tingled pleasantly along sensory pathways throughout her body, and she shuddered in their grip.

"I thought it was just me," Starscream was saying, his voice low as he watched her reactions to what he was doing to her.

"It was, mostly," she answered with a gasp, her voice shuddering as he continued to run his hand lightly up and down her arm and she fought back a strong urge to leap onto him and devour him. "Until about two days ago. But now…"

"Now?" he asked, his tone almost teasing.

"Now," Swoop said, lowering her voice further, growling out the words, "I want you. And I know that you want me."

Starscream blinked at her for a few lingering seconds, surprised by her bluntness, but he recovered quickly enough.

"Well, when you put it _that_ way…" he said, just before closing the small distance between their faces in order to kiss her.

It was very, very difficult to pull away from him. For very long and somewhat blissful moments, Swoop _didn't_ pull away. Instead, she melted fully against Starscream, put aside rational thought as if flipping an off-switch, and just…felt. Felt his lips against hers. Felt the warmth of his body against hers, strange and deliciously familiar at the same time. Felt his arms closing possessively around her, holding her tightly against him. Felt curious fingers begin to explore her back, her wings. She had him at a disadvantage; she had a new body, he didn't. Swoop dug her fingers into his chest as she broke the kiss with a groan in order to nibble at his lips, his jaw line. She heard him gasp and growl at that, felt her own control slipping away inch by inch as desire rose, pure scalding lust surfacing with breath-taking swiftness…

…And then she pulled away from him, scrambled off the berth, and backed away until she'd backed herself against a wall. It was eerily reminiscent of their first encounter. He didn't pursue, though. He stayed on the berth, panting just as she was, watching her hungrily.

"Not yet," she managed to say to him, panting out the words. "Have to reverse whatever Ratchet's done…or else it might not work."

He scowled at her, but he nodded his understanding all the same.

"Make it quick," he advised after he took a moment to collect himself. "I don't know how much longer I can…"

"Oh, yes," she interrupted him and then, before she decided to do something crazy, she spun toward the door and left. There were preparations to make, not the least of which was talking to Ratchet. She could already feel her audios burning, anticipating his reaction to what she wanted, _needed_, to do. What she was _going_ to do, no matter what he had to say on the subject. The thought distracted her from the raging desire that was burning through her. Or at least it distracted her for now.

Soon, she knew, nothing on Earth or anywhere else would be able to distract her, much less to deter her.

* * *

_**Next time:**__ As if you can't guess? Pseudo-smut ahoy! Batten down the hatches! *resists strong urge to title the next chapter "Sexual Healing"*_

_BUT! Besides the "smut," Starscream reveals a fairly big chunk of information that will rock poor Swoop's little world. You will be amazed. Well, OK, maybe not __**amazed**__, but you will be surprised. Probably. Maybe. Unless I've been utterly obvious, that is…_


	15. 13: Revelation

_Wow, I bet you all thought I died and this story along with me. Well, I didn't die…but my mother did, and, all emotional issues aside, you would not __**believe**__ the amount of work that results when your only surviving parent dies and you're the only person available to take care of things in the aftermath. __**I**__ certainly wouldn't have believed the work involved. Yikes._

_But, things are sort of done now, with just a few loose ends here and there that for the moment don't require my immediate attention. So, that means that for the first time in months, I have some time that's truly mine. And when that happens, fic generally happens._

_And I've been working on this one, mostly. Namely, it is now all in third person. And some of the chapters that I have been less than happy with have had a bit of a rewrite. So, once I post this chapter, I'll be going back and updating most of the previous chapters I've posted here, although I should say that there's nothing different enough that if you've read this far you'll need to re-read or anything. __**And**__ I rewrote the ending for like the eighth time because I keep second-guessing myself. ("No, that's too ambiguous…No, that's not ambiguous enough…Nope, too happy…OK, not happy enough…No, that's too mushy…Wait! That's not enough mush!…OK, that's a good level of mush and a good level of happy, but WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING OVER THERE?" And so forth.) _

_And I cleaned up this chapter, too, putting it into third person and adding a bit of stuff to what I'd already written and deleting other stuff, such that it evolved into something much less about pseudo-smut that would be largely a replay of the first chapter and more about developing the relationship between my two little playthings here. :) The result is…a really long chapter, I'm afraid. But I don't want to split it up, and I figure that I owe it to y'all, anyway. So if anyone's still waiting to read more of this, I thank you for your patience._

_

* * *

_

_**13: Revelation**_

Swoop had anticipated a long and drawn-out war of words with Ratchet. She had thought that there would be much outrage and yelling and possibly a few death threats aimed at a certain Seeker and perhaps even at herself. But in the end, Ratchet had surprised her. After poring over the research that she'd done and the results of the tests and simulations that she'd run, and after contemplating the situation on his own, Ratchet had independently reached the very same conclusion that Swoop had reached, much as he didn't at all _like_ the conclusion. Swoop learned as they'd spoken, calmly and rationally, that he had even thought of speaking to her about the very same idea that she was bringing to him; he just hadn't yet worked up the courage to broach the subject by the time that she'd shown up in his office to talk to him.

To make things easier for Swoop, given her own rapidly deteriorating condition, Ratchet had quietly arranged things, speaking with Optimus Prime and, more dauntingly, with Wheeljack about the situation. He had even volunteered the use of his quarters for the occasion. Swoop's were too otherwise populated with large and very overprotective siblings, the medbay wasn't an appropriate environment for such a thing, being rather too public, and there were no otherwise unoccupied quarters available. When she'd half-heartedly protested, Ratchet had pointedly assured Swoop that he was quite happy to bunk with Wheeljack for however long it took. Meaning, Swoop suspected, that he was volunteering for the perilous duty of distracting Wheeljack from what she was doing, and that kind of distraction possibly involved actually sitting on him. Although he understood things a little better since they'd had their talk, Wheeljack still didn't at all share the level of understanding that Swoop had been surprised to discover that she shared with Ratchet.

It felt rather odd to Swoop to be heading to Ratchet's quarters in order to accomplish the particular task at hand, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and beggars she and Starscream most certainly were. It had taken two days for the effects of Ratchet's delaying-tactic treatment to wear off on Starscream, but once it had, it was clear that the other "treatment" couldn't be delayed, not for him. He was like a caged and feral animal, out of control and complete with an instinct-driven potential to be dangerous to himself and others because of it.

Swoop was utterly amazed that he'd been able to hold out as long as he had, for literally months. She had no idea how he'd managed it; it had been less than a week since she'd started to feel the imprint's effects again, and she already felt ready to start climbing walls. It was likely that the rapidity of the onset of the imprint's effect on her was merely a reflection of Starscream's simmering and long-term urgency, but she still had to admire his restraint.

Now, as she headed toward Ratchet's quarters, where Starscream awaited her, Swoop was trying to keep to a walk, trying to appear dignified in her decidedly undignified state, trying not to run frantically to him. Her body was feverishly heated and already given to shivering. Her breath came in short pants, and there were occasional growls mixed in, too, and there was a clawing, itching feeling all over that made her want to leap entirely out of her own body in order to escape it. And she could _feel_ Starscream, could feel the echoed want in him, so very strong, stronger in him than in her due to the circumstances that had led them to this place, to the situation that they mutually faced.

Oh yes, she remembered this well, indeed. The only difference was that this time her body wasn't changing and in deep discomfort that often leapt across the threshold into intense pain because of it. Nor was her spark desperately hungry for energy because she wasn't in cycle this time but merely echoing Starscream's need. This time, for her, there was just the want. Scorching, undeniable, irresistible want. But she didn't have long to wait now, as she turned down the corridor on which Ratchet's quarters were situated.

Swoop unlocked the door to Ratchet's quarters, slipped quickly inside, and then turned to lock the door again so that they wouldn't be disturbed. And then she turned to face Starscream, finding him huddled in a corner. He stared at her hungrily, his eyes dimmed to a blood-red crimson and glittering dangerously, but he was obviously uncertain, as well. It puzzled Swoop for a moment before she realized that he was likely trying to decide if she was really there or if she was merely something that his fevered imagination had conjured up to torment him, as it had done, so he'd told her, over and over again during the past couple of months.

It occurred to Swoop that their positions were somewhat reversed from the last time they'd had this sort of encounter. Then, she'd been the one barely holding herself together, and he'd arrived and approached her in a somewhat more composed state, although that composure had rapidly abandoned him. The difference was that this time, neither of them wanted to fight what was going to happen between them. This time, Swoop wanted nothing more than to leap on Starscream, and—

But Starscream leaped on Swoop first, and in the next nanosecond Swoop found herself lifted as if she weighed no more than a feather and then crushed up against the wall behind her. The impact wasn't gentle, and it thrummed and rattled uncomfortably through her body, particularly through her more-delicate wings. Nor was _he_ gentle, immediately setting to nuzzling, nibbling, and then biting along her jaw line and down into the juncture of her neck and her shoulder, feverishly betting that they were just as sensitive on her new body as they had been on her old one. Judging from the sounds that Swoop made in response, his bet had paid off; her soft moans were very quickly devolving into the needful, animal snarls that had sent shivers racing through him before and were doing so again.

Unlike their previous encounter, no words were exchanged between them, for none were needed. There were only sensations and the wordless sounds uttered in reaction to them, sounds that quickly increased in volume and urgency and, on Swoop's part, animalism. Unlike their previous encounter, there was no hesitation on either side, and no need to move slowly or to be cautious or gentle in order to avoid spooking each other, Swoop in particular. Swoop's last coherent, rational thought was that Starscream, in his current state wouldn't last long at all…and neither, she realized with something like chagrin, would she. After that, she wasn't thinking anymore.

Their mouths, busy against each other for long minutes, mutually exploring and tasting and teasing, finally came together in a jarring, brutal, bruising kiss that didn't end for a long, long time; it merely shifted nuances on occasion, alternating between exploring and biting. Swoop wrapped her legs tightly around Starscream for balance and leverage, using them to pull him to her and then crush him against her as closely as possible, freeing him from having to support her weight with his hands. He immediately put his hands to far better use, setting them to roam all over Swoop's body, stroking and caressing and occasionally digging boldly into armor seams, meticulously exploring each of her new curves and angles. Starscream broke the long, biting kiss then, nuzzling insistently into the side of Swoop's neck, alternating between biting down into it and exploring it with his tongue, just as he was exploring other parts of her with his hands, wringing sensation from Swoop such that she felt paralyzed. Or rather, it was if she'd suddenly forgotten why it was necessary to move as opposed to staying right where she was forever and ever, drowning in sensation, in him, as she listened to the grunts and snarls and low, guttural growls that she knew, distantly, that she was making but that she hardly recognized as her own.

After long and deeply blissful moments, it dimly occurred to Swoop that she should be reciprocating in some manner, and with a mighty effort she willed herself to move, leaning forward slightly so that she could drape her arms over Starscream's shoulders. She toyed with the juncture of his wings and his back, the most sensitive area of his body that she knew of, scratching and digging into the area and then palliating the rough treatment with more soothing caresses before going back to scratching and digging. At the same time, she craned her head down a bit so that she could slowly and meticulously trace with her tongue the vents along the side of his head that she could reach, moaning and breathing heavily into them as she did so.

In response to her combined assault, Starscream let out a strangled groan; she'd never before done both of those things to him at the same time. No one ever had. The sensations that her efforts wrought, combined with the soft, continuous snarling that she was emitting from somewhere deep down in her chest, were too much. As sensation cascaded through him, Starscream let out an almost-distressed cry as his knees buckled suddenly, sending them both to the floor in an ungraceful tangle of limbs and wings. Swoop yelped as she found herself unexpectedly falling, but she was not displeased when she found herself on top of Starscream in the aftermath. Growling ferally, she took quick advantage of the situation and straddled him, pinning his arms to the floor beneath him.

Starscream knew, distantly, that he could throw her off of himself if he wanted to, if only because he greatly outweighed her. But he didn't want to throw her off, didn't want to move even a centimeter, certainly not once her mouth began to work feverishly against him. Not once she'd established with medical precision multiple interface connections between them without him even realizing what she was doing until sensation began to cycle across the connections she'd made. Not once she'd then mindlessly torn a sizeable hole into the front of his shoulder with her teeth, and her tongue had crept its way into the gash, teasing the little shorted circuits that she'd created. Half-pained/half-pleasured surges tingled through Starscream, and he moaned in response; the sensations crashed into Swoop and she squeal-screeched in approval, redoubling her efforts. She let go of his arms then and raked clawed fingers down his chest, his canopy. The protesting squeal of metal against metal did not deter her as she scratched harshly against flat armor planes and dug into seams, knowing exactly where his most sensitive areas were and exploiting them mercilessly, such that Starscream soon found himself moaning pitifully and squirming helplessly beneath her, and the echoes of his pleasure were in return roiling through her, pushing her ever closer to the precipice.

Once his arms were free, though, Starscream could retaliate. He dug his fingers into Swoop's back and then shifted his attention to her wings, tracing their new, intricate fold seams gently at first and then, abandoning caution, curiously digging into them. In response, Swoop's entire wing involuntarily heaved in a mighty twitch. And she howled at the unexpected sensation as he'd never heard her howl before. And the resulting flood of sensation that cascaded from Swoop to Starscream and then cycled between them, amplified by the connections, sent them both crashing over the edge, simultaneously, so that neither could say who had climaxed first. And neither really cared.

When Starscream came to his senses he knew not how long later, it was to the sensation of Swoop tending with infinite care to the wound that she had created in his shoulder. She was kneeling next to him, bent over him, carefully cleaning and then roughly patching the gash to protect it from any foreign particles; Earth's dirt and dust could be surprisingly detrimental to their inner workings. Keeping himself still, Starscream surreptitiously and silently watched her work, taking in the focused expression on her face, the way that her brow furrowed as she concentrated on what she was doing. She was biting down into her lower lip, probably unconsciously, as she worked, and Starscream found it strangely endearing. And he appreciated her efficient gentleness, the rock-steady carefulness of her fingers as she worked. She caused no pain whatsoever as she repaired the damage that she'd caused; Ratchet had taught her well, indeed. When she finished and noticed that Starscream had emerged from his stupor, she gave him a shamefaced look and whispered a deeply remorseful, "I'm _so_ sorry, Starscream. I…I can't believe I did that."

Starscream winced as he experimentally moved the shoulder in question, but he smiled at the same time.

"Don't be sorry, Swoop," he said quietly, his voice shaking and scratching around the words. He pushed himself weakly up into a sitting position and then shifted to lean back against the wall as he added, "It was worth it. That was…intense."

"Mmmm," she murmured in agreement as she put aside her medical supplies. "It was," she added as she leaned into him and began to pepper little apologetic kisses around the patched gash in his shoulder. "Quick," she murmured between pecks, "but _very_…intense."

Her kisses slowly began to migrate away from his shoulder then, began to morph into something less than soothing and closer to inflaming. Starscream closed his eyes, leaning limply back against the wall, simply enjoying her ministrations. Eventually, Swoop slithered her way into his lap, straddling him and then settling herself comfortably as her lips found his. The kiss was slow this time, gentle, even tender now that desperation had eased for both of them. Starscream wrapped his arms around her waist, ignoring the faint protest from his shoulder at the movement, pulling her closer to him but gently so, so that she could escape if he had spooked her. But she only snuggled even closer into him, deepening the kiss as she did so, her tongue finding and teasing his. Starscream found himself murmuring appreciatively, and Swoop smiled against him, her hands moving to run slowly down his chest, fingers tickling and teasing along the edges of his canopy.

It was then, as she toyed with the catch that secured his canopy, that Starscream realized that in order to completely "repeat the experiment," as it were, he would need to give her another infusion of spark energy. She wasn't in cycle at the moment; the extra energy would harmlessly dissipate through her systems, but it was likely to be exactly what was required in order to sever the imprint between them, if it could be severed at all. That _was_ their purpose here, after all, pleasurable though it was otherwise. And Starscream would be able to give Swoop the infusion, certainly; the now-familiar pain-pressure that was building in his spark told him this. Still, something was nagging at him, buzzing frantically in the back of his mind. He mentally poked at whatever it was, warily, and then he recognized it: It was empathy, and it was disturbing.

Meanwhile, Swoop had apparently reached the same conclusion that Starscream had reached. Never breaking the passionate but still-gentle kiss between them, she already had his canopy opened, his spark chamber exposed, and she was working on her own. Starscream broke the kiss between them then, suddenly grabbing her hands to still them. She frowned at him curiously, her brow furrowed, as he studied her face apprehensively.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked quietly.

"Sure that it will work, you mean?" she asked in return, confused by his question and his sudden and apparent uncertainty.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "No, I know that there are no guarantees. I mean, are you sure that we should do it at all?"

"If we don't," Swoop answered reasonably, her brow furrowing more deeply, "then I doubt that the imprint will break. That's what we want. Isn't it?" she added, and Starscream could have sworn that there was a measure of hesitation in her voice.

The answer that immediately and irrationally leaped to Starscream's mind was a loud and fervent "No!" but he answered, quietly, "Yes."

"Well, then…?" Swoop prompted, gently and meaningfully pulling her hands out of his grasp. She returned to her task then, and as the mellow golden light from her spark washed over him, Starscream voiced his real concern.

"I don't want to hurt you," he confessed quietly, quickly, before he thought the better of it.

Swoop stopped what she was doing and stared at him, surprised and speechless for a moment because of it.

"I know what it feels like, now," Starscream explained while she stared at him. "And I don't want you to have to go through that. Not for me."

Swoop smiled at him then, genuinely touched. She caressed his face tenderly, appreciatively, as she gently said, "It isn't just for you, Starscream. Remember? And I'm going to have to go through an infusion probably hundreds of times in my life. Once more isn't going to make much of a difference." She leaned into him then, kissed him quickly but tenderly. Then she rested her forehead against his and added softly, "It's…very nice of you to be concerned, but it's all right. Really."

Starscream nodded, not entirely convinced, but resigned to his task nevertheless. Swoop settled herself comfortably in his lap, facing him, equally resigned and trying not to show the apprehension that she felt, especially after Starscream's curious confession. She had almost taken him up on his offer, out of pure self-interest, not really wanting to experience the pain that she knew that she was about to suffer. But she was convinced that if the imprint between them could be broken at all, then an infusion would be the thing that would accomplish the severance, and this strengthened her resolve to follow through with the original plan. She signaled her readiness with a nod at Starscream. He reached out to her, and unexpectedly pulled her closer to him, wrapping one arm around her waist.

"Hold on to me," he said to her seriously. "If you need to."

Swoop nodded, smiling her appreciation of the offer, as Starscream whispered an advance apology and then made the connection between their spark chambers.

This time, Swoop had actual practical experience rather than just a clinical idea of what to expect that had been gleaned from reading. Because of that, the pain didn't take her quite so much by surprise and didn't seem quite as bad…but it was still excruciating. She held tightly to Starscream as the pain assaulted her, buffeted her. Her arms clenched tightly and reflexively around him, fingers digging roughly into him, perhaps hurting him, but if so he didn't offer a complaint. And when the energy transfer was completed and the pain finally subsided, what seemed to Swoop to be hours later, she sagged against Starscream, panting and trembling violently, whimpering quietly, helplessly. Sympathetically, and ever so gently, Starscream soothed her just as he had when they'd done this before, except that this time he held her close as he ran his hands over her body in gentle caresses and murmured soothing words and comforting sounds at her.

It seemed to Starscream that it took a long time for Swoop to recover, longer than it had before, but a more rational part of him realized that this was likely because of the empathy that he was feeling now, now that he knew first-hand the level of pain that she had just experienced. Eventually, Swoop raised her head from where it had come to rest on his shoulder. Sitting back a little, but still nestled across his lap, she regarded him blearily.

"Are you all right?" Starscream asked her.

Swoop nodded absently and answered, "I will be."

"I'm sorry," he said.

She smiled faintly and gently prodded his patched shoulder.

"We're even now," she said lightly.

Starscream snorted and answered, "That was nothing."

"Not to me," Swoop replied seriously.

And then she was leaning into him, kissing him. Starscream at first held her as if he was afraid that she would break in the aftermath of the infusion, but he soon realized what she wanted, remembering what he had done before to make up for the pain that she had experienced from that initial infusion.

Starscream was all too happy to repeat the "treatment," hoping that it would make him forget this time as much as it made her forget.

* * *

"You are awfully cuddly," Starscream felt compelled to point out when they had once again regained their senses, his voice ragged.

Swoop was working at snuggling into him as closely as she could manage. She couldn't tell if he approved of her cuddliness or was disgusted by it, but he didn't move, so Swoop assumed that approval at least outweighed disgust for the moment. Or maybe it was just that he was too worn out to move. Either worked.

"I'm cold," Swoop informed him, nuzzling her face insistently into the shoulder that she hadn't damaged.

Starscream snorted disbelievingly.

"How can you _possibly_ be cold after _that_?" he demanded to know.

Raising her head, Swoop looked up into his face.

"Remember back when all of this started?" she asked. "When you were trying to figure out the secrets of my wondrous armor?"

Starscream frowned deeply at the question, thinking that she was rather bizarrely changing the subject.

"Yes?" he answered, almost hesitantly, as if to humor the suddenly crazy person.

"Well, I'll let you in on some of its deepest, darkest secrets," Swoop grumbled. "It's really light. It's really strong. And it's _way_ too efficient at dissipating heat. The hotter I get, the colder I am a few minutes later."

Starscream frowned for a moment, considering what she'd said. Then: "Well!" he crowed with a self-satisfied smirk. "I guess I should be flattered, then."

Swoop ceased her squirming long enough to aim a quizzical look at his face.

"What?" she asked, not following him.

"Given that you are currently doing your level best to climb _inside_ my armor," Starscream answered with a wicked grin, "I can only conclude that I must have made you _really_ hot."

Swoop glared at him and then she sighed in surrender, muttering, "Yes, well…Don't let it go to your head."

"Too late!" Starscream quipped. And then, as Swoop snorted exasperatedly and resumed her squirming, he sighed in annoyance and sat up, leaning back against the wall that was still behind them.

"Hey!" Swoop protested indignantly as he moved.

Further feeble protests issued from Swoop as Starscream yanked insistently at her, pulling her upright as well. And then he wordlessly tucked her against himself, her back to his front. And then he wrapped both of his arms and both of his legs around her. And Swoop abruptly stopped protesting, instead murmuring in appreciation and snuggling in to revel in the wrap-around warmth that he was offering to her.

"Do you think it worked?" Starscream murmured at her drowsily a moment later.

"Don't know," Swoop answered, equally drowsy but knowing exactly what he meant. "We'll need to run some scans…um, later."

And then, leaning comfortably back against Starscream, Swoop promptly passed out. And Starscream wasn't far behind her.

* * *

"I don't even know what that says," Swoop confessed with a languidly contented sigh. It was hours later, after a long, slow, and extremely enjoyable Round Three.

They had managed to clumsily stumble their way to Ratchet's berth this time, which was infinitely more comfortable than either the floor of Autobot Headquarters or the floor of an equatorial rain forest. Now, Swoop was snuggled up against Starscream again, basking reptile-like in his radiating warmth. She watched as he meditatively traced with one finger the golden symbols that spiraled down the field of lapis that was the top of her right forearm.

"If it says anything at all," Swoop added offhandedly. "If it isn't just random decoration or something, I mean."

Starscream looked at her, frowning quizzically, and his hand stilled.

"It isn't random decoration," he said quietly. He held her gaze levelly as he explained, "But I'm not surprised that you don't know what it says. I'm surprised that anyone here _does_ know what it says, other than maybe Prowl, and I really can't imagine him having any…er, artistic input. Which is why I can't figure out how—"

"Snarl knows what it says," Swoop informed Starscream. At the deeply questioning look that Starscream gave her, she shrugged and answered, "Snarl has a thing for languages. I'm sure he told Sludge what to…er, write."

Starscream grunted noncommittally at that, but Swoop could tell that he was surprised. Perhaps impressed, even, just as he had been when she'd told him that it was Sludge who had designed the body that she was now wearing.

"This is a very old warrior dialect," Starscream informed her after a moment's silence. "I don't know how it was pronounced, so I can't speak it, but I can read it."

Swoop waited for him to do so, meanwhile appreciating the low, thoughtful quietness of his voice. It made her wonder if his characteristic nasal screech was a mere affectation or if it was only something that surfaced when he was stressed. At the moment, he was anything but stressed, his body warm and relaxed alongside hers.

"So?" she prompted after the silence between them lengthened to a point beyond her comfort level. Plus, she was intensely curious now. "What does it _say_?"

Starscream hesitated. For a moment, he went back to distractedly tracing the inlaid glyphs on her arm, and Swoop was forced to nudge him with a knee to get his attention again. When she did, he met her gaze only reluctantly and almost shyly.

"It says," he announced quietly, "'She who will restore.'" Then, reaching to gently grab her other arm, he laid it alongside its twin and added, "And this one says, 'She who will…redeem.'"

The pause before the last word was significant, and Starscream looked up again to meet Swoop's gaze, his expression deadly serious. Impulsively, she reached out and stroked his cheek, and he thoughtlessly leaned into the caress.

"Is that what you want, Starscream?" Swoop asked quietly of him, stroking a thumb gently over the seam of his cheek. Her narrowed, searching gaze did not stray from his. "To be redeemed?"

"Maybe," he said quietly, after a moment's thought. But then, suddenly and determinedly, he was moving, disentangling himself from Swoop and getting up off of the berth, putting some buffering distance between them. Swoop shivered, immediately missing the warmth of him against her and, leaning back against the wall at the head of the berth, she drew her knees into her chest, trying to hold in warmth as she watched Starscream pace a few laps of the room. "Then again," he added pointedly, halting his pacing and turning to face her, "maybe I don't think that I need to be. I thought that we were doing the _right_ thing."

Swoop blinked at him, not following for a moment, but then she realized what he was talking about.

"Mmmm," she murmured with a nod. Then she added with biting sarcasm, "Because mass murder can't possibly be _wrong_."

Starscream scowled at that, his jaw clenching and his eyes narrowing.

"Do you have _any_ idea we suffered because of her? What the populations of neighboring systems suffered?" he asked, quietly angry.

Swoop raised her chin at him, defiantly.

"Yes," she said honestly, bluntly. "Yes, I do. What she did to the warriors and…and to many others was wrong, all of it, and I won't defend any of it. But what _you_ did, what _all_ of you did… That was wrong, too, and if I could remember any of it or if I had any sort of real emotional attachment at all, and if I didn't actually agree that _something_ needed to be done about her, I'd probably hate you for it. But even if she…my mother…had been the worst monster in the history of the universe, you destroyed _children, _Starscream. Innocents. A helpless _infant_."

Starscream gave her a penetrating look at that, his eyes suddenly narrowed more in thoughtfulness than in anger. He seemed to deliberate about something for a noticeable stretch of time, his head tilted slightly to one side as he regarded Swoop, as she stared back at him in quiet outrage that was fueled more by a lack of understanding than by moral insult. Then he sighed, his shoulders slumping as he moved to perch on the berth, sitting on the very edge of it, facing Swoop but not touching her, not quite.

"That wasn't supposed to happen, you know. At least, not to you," he clarified quietly. He gave her a surprisingly intense look that clearly communicated that he was trying to tell her something very important, but she had no clue what it was. "Eclipse wasn't…_You_ weren't a target," Starscream clarified further when Swoop said nothing.

"Why the hell not?" Swoop asked, blinking at him, surprise making her both bold and frank. "Everyone else was!"

"Because," Starscream answered quietly, "the plan wasn't to doom our entire species. We were _angry_, enraged to the point of…of regicide, yes. And maybe you're right that we didn't go about things in the best way possible…but then again, you weren't really there, and…and you don't know about all of the...particulars. But whatever the case, we were not _stupid_."

Swoop frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but Starscream hurriedly spoke over her.

"You were an infant, as you said," he explained, his voice matter-of-fact. "The entire coup was deliberately planned to happen shortly after your birth, and whether or not it happened _at all,_ at least at that particular time, entirely depended upon whether or not you were female."

Swoop could only blink at him for a long moment, stupidly. And then she declared, very intelligently, "I don't understand."

Starscream sighed.

"Megatron knew that he would need a…replacement for your mother, but he also knew that it couldn't be any of your sisters. They were all already too old, would understand and remember everything that had happened, and he knew that if he let any of them live, they would be nothing but trouble, uncooperative trouble, and he couldn't risk that. But then when your mother announced her latest pregnancy…"

"An infant," Swoop said as his voice trailed off, as she began to comprehend, "wouldn't remember anything. She would only know what she was told and would only learn what she was allowed to learn. And if she was the only surviving female," Swoop further realized, "then it was guaranteed that she would succeed when the time came…"

"Yes," Starscream answered quietly as Swoop's voice trailed off. "Exactly so. So if you had been male, we would have waited until the next time. But you were female. A blank, infant slate for Megatron to write on as he saw fit as you matured. And then, when you _were_ fully mature, he could…use you…as he saw fit, too."

Swoop was silent for a long, long time after that, absorbing what Starscream had said, trying to decide whether or not to believe him. It _did_ make sense, after all; one of the mysteries that surrounded the warrior uprising was the question of why Megatron had been willing to doom his own species' entire future for the sake of his cause. It seemed nonsensical and, for the most part, he was written off as insane for doing so, painted as concerned only about his own power, sparing not a thought for the future. But Swoop now realized that he hadn't been insane and that he had had what he had seen as a viable plan for the future, horrible as it might have been for her. _Someone_ had merely foiled that plan, and Megatron had been muddling through ever since. It explained much.

"But in the end," Starscream finally, quietly said, as if he'd become uncomfortable with the silence, "you suffered a much better fate, Swoop. Consequences for our species aside, I should think that even death would have been preferable to becoming…What's the term? A 'brood mare?' But you didn't die. _Someone_ just went to lengths to make it look like you did."

"Who?" Swoop asked immediately, almost reflexively.

"I don't know," Starscream answered. "Not for certain, at any rate. But I always thought that you _were_ dead, and so I thought that _that_ person was the insane one," he continued quietly. "That _that_ was the person who doomed us, not Megatron. Not…ourselves."

"But?" Swoop prompted after he'd been quiet for a while, since the unspoken "but" hanging in his voice was glaringly obvious.

"But I was wrong," Starscream confessed quietly, bitterly, and Swoop knew that those particular words were very difficult for him to utter. He stared down at her arm as he added, "Instead he arranged it such that one day, some time in the future, you could indeed become…" He paused, reached out to run a hand down Swoop's forearm, and whispered, "'She who will restore.'"

Swoop stared at Starscream some more, searchingly now.

"You _do_ know who it was," she decided. "Tell me," she demanded.

"I have only suspicions," Starscream answered guardedly and perhaps bitterly. "I doubt that I will be allowed the opportunity to confirm them."

"I'll confirm them for you," Swoop insisted flatly. "Tell me."

Starscream's eyes narrowed as he stared at her for long moments, obviously deliberating. Then:

"Think of the warriors who are amongst the Autobots now," he said, leaning toward Swoop conspiratorially. "Consider only those who were alive and present on Cybertron at the time of the revolt. Now, from amongst those few, consider who would be the most likely to recognize and capitalize on something so small but that would potentially have such an utterly devastating effect on Megatron and his plan."

"Prowl," Swoop blurted out, without even a second of hesitation.

"There's my clever girl," Starscream said, leaning even closer toward her so that he could tap the end of her nose with one finger, as one might a child. Swoop glared at him for the patronizing gesture as he continued, "I always suspected that he had done _something_ at the time. He was…unhappy…with Megatron, even then. But I never confronted him about it because I wasn't sure what, if anything, he'd done, and even if I _had_ been sure, there was no evidence of anything. And without evidence, Megatron would have dismissed anything that I had to say, _especially_ if it was something about Prowl. But then when he left us, defected to Optimus Prime…"

"But Prowl wouldn't know how to remove someone's spark like that," Swoop pointed out, interrupting. "Would he?" she added uncertainly when it occurred to her that, really, she had no idea what Prowl might or might not know how to do. He was a complete enigma to her and always had been. He was so aloof and always seemed so forbidding that she habitually maintained a wide and wary distance from him, when it was possible to do so. Starscream knew him far better than she did, possibly better than any of the Autobots did, ironically enough.

"No," Starscream confirmed meanwhile. "No, he wouldn't. At least not that I know of. But that doesn't matter because it would have been easy enough to find and convince an accomplice who _did_ know how to do that, particularly someone whom he knew wasn't _really_…"

Swoop watched Starscream's face curiously as his voice trailed off, but it was soon obvious that he wasn't going to finish his thought aloud. As he settled into a thoughtful silence, Swoop took to wondering if she would ever reach a point when nothing would surprise her, when she would know and understand everything about herself. It didn't seem possible because every time she thought she understood even just a small aspect of herself, another bomb fell and ripped everything apart again.

"Just when I think things can't _possibly_ get any weirder," she muttered dispiritedly as she slumped against the wall behind her, folding her arms over her chest.

"Oh, there's all manner of weird here," Starscream gravely agreed. "You're a queen. I'm practically immortal and possibly eternally…uh, connected to you. And Prowl…Prowl might just be Jesus in disguise."

"What?" Swoop sputtered, laughing despite herself.

"Well, he might be _your_ personal savior, anyway," Starscream asserted with a careless shrug.

Swoop just stared at him for a long, long moment after that.

"You're crazy," she decided.

"You have _no_ idea," Starscream agreed, very seriously. "And it's a damned good thing for you that I am," he added, equally seriously, as his gaze held hers.

"Oh really?" she asked, blinking at him, nonplussed. "How so?"

"Because I had orders to kill you," he said, with a shrug that didn't entirely succeed at being flippantly casual. "And _because_ I'm crazy, I didn't. Lucky you."

Swoop was surprised that he was bringing up that particular subject. Surprised and curious. He didn't seem inclined to elaborate, though, so:

"Why _did_ you decide not to kill me, Starscream?" she asked of him directly. It was a question that had been burning in her mind for weeks, and even though she didn't expect Starscream to answer her at all, much less honestly, she still felt compelled to ask it of him. True to form, Starscream just continued to regard her steadily, an enigmatic half-smile on his dark face. Once a few moments had passed and Swoop realized that he wasn't going to answer her question, she added, only half-teasingly, "Don't tell me you were feeling reverent."

Starscream actually looked thoughtful as he considered that, and for a moment Swoop wondered if she'd hit the mark, all unintentionally. But then he was suddenly and unexpectedly moving to straddle her, effectively pinning her down, and shortly after _that_ their faces were mere centimeters apart. His gaze was burning, and it held hers insistently. She couldn't look away if she tried.

And then Starscream asked, "And what if I said that I was, my queen?"

The question was asked in quiet and perfect and surprising earnest, perhaps even in deference. It was certainly the first time that Starscream had used the traditional honorific, but Swoop couldn't tell whether it was sarcastic or genuine,

And impulsively, in lieu of answering him, Swoop closed the minute distance between them, kissing him deeply and thoroughly, snaking her arms into the narrow spaces between his neck and his shoulder vents in order to pull him closer against her. When they came up for air, long minutes later, she answered breathlessly, "I wouldn't believe you."

"Mmmm," Starscream murmured in return, and then _he_ kissed _her_. When _that_ kiss came to its eventual and natural conclusion, more long moments later, he asked, "You don't think you're worthy of reverence?"

"I'm worthy," Swoop answered with an impudent grin. "I just don't think that _you're _capable."

"Is that so?" Starscream asked indignantly, narrowing his eyes at her in such a way that they seemed to radiate a deeper crimson.

"It is," she answered him, nodding gravely.

"I'll have you know that I'm capable of _many_ things that might surprise you," he insisted.

"Oh, really?" Swoop lazily replied, amused. She raised a hand in the scant distance between their bodies so that she could run one teasing finger lightly down the center of his canopy. She smirked at the involuntary shudder that the gesture wrung from him.

"Really," Starscream confirmed, regarding her seriously and in sudden challenge, his smoldering crimson gaze locked with her liquid, golden one.

"Prove it, then," she growled, all sudden intensity herself as she pulled him fully against her, quickly enough that he had no time to react or resist, even going so far as to wrap a leg around him to prevent his escape. "Revere me, warrior," she commanded in a breathy and urgently demanding whisper right against his audio.

And Starscream proceeded to do _exactly_ as she'd commanded.

* * *

_**Next time:**__ Prowl, you got some splainin' to do! Then again, Swoop might wish she'd never asked…_


	16. 14: Retrospect

_**14: Retrospect**_

Prowl's office door was always open. It wasn't that he was inviting visitors, so Swoop had always thought, but simply that he wanted to keep an eye on what was happening outside of his door. The thought was not entirely comforting. Steeling herself, firmly reminding herself that she had every right to talk to him – to question him, even – if she wanted to, Swoop cautiously poked her head into the room.

The humans had a name for Prowl's decorating style, such as it was. It was a name borrowed from an ancient warrior culture of their own: Spartan. The description suited Prowl's office well. The room contained little besides a simple desk housing a computer station, a set of shelves holding a neatly-arranged and organized array of datapads, and a few chairs. But as bare as it was, it somehow suited him. One warrior ideal was to need little; Prowl was a perfect reflection of that warrior ideal among many others.

He was at his desk, absorbed in whatever was displayed on the computer screen in front of him. For a moment, Swoop had second…third…fourth thoughts about speaking with him, but she determinedly put them aside and rapped her knuckles lightly on the doorjamb to get his attention.

Immediately, Prowl looked up, and almost as immediately his full attention wholly focused, crystallized, on Swoop. Before he could say anything and before she could allow herself to feel completely intimidated, Swoop determinedly asked, "Do you have a few minutes, Prowl?"

"For you," he answered smoothly after a blink of surprise, "I have hours. Please, come in," he added, and he gestured at one of the chairs on the other side of his desk. When Swoop had settled herself into it, he asked, "What may I do for you, Swoop?"

Swoop bit down nervously on her lower lip, her fingers clenching reflexively around the arm of her chair. She'd wandered around the corridors of Autobot Headquarters for a while before finally working her way to Prowl's office. All the while, she'd been rehearsing what she'd say to him. But she found that once she was sitting and facing him, her scripted conversations left her, evaporated, leaving her flying blind. This, in combination with Prowl's level, polite, but expectant stare, ramped up her anxiety by another notch or two, but she forced her childish jitters aside.

"I have two things," she said quietly, hesitantly. "One is a heads-up, the other a…question."

Prowl gave her a silent, polite acknowledging nod, and Swoop decided to get the easier issue out of the way first.

"As you may or may not know," she said levelly, "Starscream and I…attempted to break the imprint between us several days ago."

"So I'd heard," Prowl answered, nodding.

"Our attempt appears to have been unsuccessful," Swoop reported matter-of-factly.

"I'm very sorry," Prowl murmured.

Swoop shrugged as she said, "We knew there were no guarantees involved. And we'll all continue thinking about and looking for alternatives." Then she sighed as she added, "But it's very likely that future…accommodations…will need to be made because it could very well be a permanent condition. I've already reported this to Optimus Prime, and he said that I should tell you, so that you can inform the personnel who'll need to know."

Prowl sat back in his chair, and Swoop was surprised to see dismay on his face.

"Passing the buck again," he murmured.

Swoop smiled fractionally.

"He calls it 'delegating,'" she said, and her tone almost managed to be light.

"Oh, I'm very aware of what he calls it," Prowl grimly remarked. He got up out of his chair then, began to pace the small confines of his office. "This is a potential security nightmare," he said, almost wearily.

"I know," Swoop answered. "But it isn't something that I have much of a choice about. Or _any_ control over. On the plus side, he's…here, and from what he says, due to the circumstances of his departure and because he didn't kill me as he had been ordered to do, he's not likely to be welcomed back into the Decepticon fold. So, he's likely not going anywhere, either."

Prowl made a noncommittal noise and continued to pace.

"What is his status now?" he eventually asked.

"Right now," Swoop answered, "he's in the medbay. We've been constantly monitoring his spark's energy signature to see if it changes, but since it's been a few days now and there's been no change, we—"

"He should be moved to the brig," Prowl unexpectedly interrupted, his voice almost a growl.

Swoop frowned at that, surprised at both the interruption and at the obvious irritation in his voice.

"I don't think that's necessary," she asserted levelly. "He's disarmed, has no access to any of our computers or sensitive systems, and is under constant guard – Dinobot guard. Grimlock and Slag won't let him out of their sight. And he's done nothing threatening since he's been here."

"Because he's been mostly incapacitated most of the time, either physically or…mentally," Prowl spat, with more feeling than Swoop had ever heard from him. "He should just be done away with," Prowl continued vehemently. "Then you wouldn't have to worry about any imprint."

It wasn't in Prowl's nature to be facetious, and for some reason his suggestion irritated Swoop. She rose from her chair then and turned to face him, and perhaps because she was irritated he suddenly didn't seem nearly so intimidating to her. She folded her arms over her chest and spat back at Prowl, "Just what _is_ it between you two?"

Her tone gave Prowl pause, and when he looked over at her, for a fleeting moment he saw not her but her mother. The stance was the same. The way that she raised her chin at him was the same. The way that her eyes narrowed at him peevishly was the same. Even the voice was disturbingly the same, particularly so now that Swoop was apparently outraged. It was all somewhat disturbing, and Prowl had to blink a few times before the apparition dissipated and it was Swoop standing there again.

But she was a different Swoop now, and the changes were not merely physical. Unschooled and unprepared for her position as she was, she was only just beginning to discover the depths of the power that she wielded. But it was already flowing out of her sometimes, all unconsciously, mostly in involuntary flashes when she was angry or outraged about something. On those occasions, Prowl found himself in an odd position. She'd always been meek, particularly so for a Dinobot, and rather unassuming, content to spend her time mostly in the medbay. Most importantly, whenever they'd had cause to interact, Prowl had always had authority over her. But with each passing day since the revelation of her true identity, her true status, whether she realized it or not, Swoop was becoming less meek…and now she had authority over him, over _all_ of them, whether or not she'd fully realized it. And she was waiting for him, now, waiting for him to answer her question, for she clearly expected an answer.

"It's a long story," Prowl answered with a sigh. "Suffice it to say that to me, he is a triple offense. He is a liar, and a coward, and a traitor."

Swoop almost laughed.

"Funny," she said mildly. "He says the same thing about you. The traitor part, I mean."

Prowl narrowed his eyes at her in annoyance.

"I left Megatron," he said quietly, "on principle. Starscream…indulges in treachery for fun. Because it gives him a thrill. He has a silver tongue, and he will say _exactly_ what you want to hear, all the while working on plans to stab you in the back. Which he _will_ do once he decides that it's to his advantage to do so. Don't make the mistake of trusting _anything_ that he says. Don't make the mistake of trusting him, period. Lest you forget, he killed three of your siblings, I believe, and who knows how many other people during the uprising. With no remorse whatsoever."

Silence reigned between them after that, Swoop thinking and Prowl reining in his rarely-expressed emotions. Starscream, and talking about Starscream, was one of the few things that could still make him lose control; he'd conquered most of the others.

"Mmmm," Swoop eventually responded, quietly. "And how many people did _you_ kill during the uprising, Prowl? How much remorse did _you_ have?"

Prowl stared at her, blinking, not at all expecting such a response and not having an answer for her, not before she had already continued.

"How many people did…oh, Sunstreaker kill? Sunstreaker doesn't know the _meaning_ of the word remorse and is only with us, as I understand it, because he has some personal scores to settle with certain Decepticons. How about Sideswipe? Brawn? In the end," she continued relentlessly, "am I supposed to hate _all_ of the warriors who participated in the uprising or only those who didn't have second thoughts about it _afterward_? Or should I only not hate those who chose to sit out the whole thing?"

Prowl continued to just stare at her.

"Hey, I have an idea!" she exclaimed when he said nothing. "How about if I just hate…nobody? Not you. Not Starscream. Not even _Megatron_. You've all got blood on your hands, so as far as I'm concerned none of you can claim the moral high ground on the issue of the uprising. So how about if we just leave the past in the past and deal with the present instead? Because really? I'm tired of being told to think something or do something or feel a certain way about someone because of something that happened thousands of years ago to people that I never knew, even though they were my family. Mirage is completely stuck in the past, and I don't want to be that way. I want to…move on."

Prowl finally found his voice.

"That's…probably a wise course of action," he said quietly. "We're all perhaps fortunate that _you_ have the freedom to think that way."

"It's just a choice, Prowl," Swoop answered, equally quietly. "All of us can choose to hold grudges and live in the past or…not. It's easier for me to make that choice because I have no direct experience of the uprising, sure, but at some point, we're all going to have to make the choice about _when_ we're going to live."

"True," Prowl agreed, settling himself to perch on the corner of his desk while studying Swoop intensely, measuringly, of a sudden. She had to fight the urge to take a few reflexive steps backward, away from him, under his scrutiny. Eventually, Prowl added, "But all of that doesn't change the fact that Starscream…is Starscream."

"Because no one ever changes," Swoop asserted flatly.

"What's the saying?" Prowl responded. "'The leopard can't change his spots'?"

"He isn't a leopard," Swoop pointed out.

"But he's every bit as spotty," Prowl immediately countered. He cocked his head to one side and then thoughtfully asked of her, "Has he been telling you that he's changed, then?"

"Actually, no," Swoop answered calmly. "He's made no such claim. He also hasn't told me anything that I want to hear, although he seems quite happy to tell me things that I _don't_ want to hear," she added. "_And_ he managed to totally miss not one but a number of perfect opportunities to stab me in the back, figuratively and literally, even though he has a pretty good motive to kill me now, what with the imprint that doesn't end. So…Imagine that."

Prowl frowned at her. "Interesting," was his only response before he thoughtfully added, "Perhaps he's changing tactics."

"Or perhaps," Swoop said, "it's just to his advantage at the moment to not be Starscream." At Prowl's quizzical look, she added, "Don't worry, Prowl. I don't trust him. And…in general, I agree with you. But still, I'm not going to toss him in the brig unless he gives me reason to. And he's not going to be questioned, either," she added, making air quotes around the word "questioned."

Prowl gave her an arch look.

"Since when is that _your_ decision to make?" he asked, although, really, he already knew the answer to that question. And apparently so did Swoop, if her serene smile was any indication.

"Since about, what? Two months ago now?" she answered airily. At Prowl's sharp look in response, Swoop repeated, "Don't worry. I have no real interest in pulling rank. But…You should know that I _will_ protect Starscream, at least for the foreseeable future. I need him, and for now I want to give him reason to trust _me_."

Prowl thought about arguing, but she had her chin raised at him, and he knew what that meant. Or at least he knew what it had meant when her mother had done it, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the gesture had an identical meaning coming from Swoop.

"As you wish," he relented grudgingly.

"And speaking of things that Starscream has told me," Swoop ventured after a moment, her tone quieter and suddenly less confident, "I have…a few questions."

Her apprehension was back. She suspected, though, that it had less to do with a fear of Prowl and more to do with a fear of another of those bombshells that tended to rip apart her understanding of things. Prowl was looking at her, his head tilted inquisitively to the side.

"Yes?" he calmly, patiently prompted as she searched for words.

"Starscream told me," Swoop eventually, quietly said, "something about Megatron's plan for the uprising and its…aftermath. That I wasn't supposed to die. That I was supposed to replace my mother when I matured."

Prowl nodded.

"That was his plan, yes," he confirmed mildly.

"He told me that things went…awry, though."

Prowl snorted lightly.

"Indeed they did," he agreed. "In more ways than one."

"And he seems to think that you had a lot to do with that," Swoop concluded.

Prowl looked at Swoop sharply, and she could have sworn that there was amusement on his face.

"Does he now?" Prowl responded thoughtfully. Then he shrugged and said, almost to himself, "Apparently, Starscream might be slightly smarter than I give him credit for."

"So it's true, then?" Swoop said hesitantly, and it was half statement and half question.

"Yes," Prowl answered, then qualified, "To a certain degree. But Starscream's…thinking…about the situation can't be entirely correct. I guarantee you that he is…what's the saying? 'Barking down the wrong shrub?'"

"Barking up the wrong tree," Swoop corrected with something of a grin. Prowl was as bad with strange human sayings as Grimlock was.

"Whatever," Prowl responded, waving at her dismissively.

Swoop regarded him curiously for a moment, her brow furrowed in thought, before asking, "What makes you so certain that Starscream doesn't have it all figured out?"

"Because," Prowl answered calmly, "if Starscream had it all _correctly_ 'figured out,' certain things would be much different, I should think."

Swoop frowned at that, still curious.

"Would you care to enlighten me?" she asked, but her tone made it quite obvious that it wasn't a request.

"What else has Starscream told you about what he suspects?" Prowl asked first, out of curiosity more than anything else. He knew that Starscream had been suspicious of him, all those years ago, and apparently he still was, enough so to maneuver Swoop into asking questions, perhaps figuring that, of anyone, he'd be compelled to tell her the truth. And now Prowl found himself perversely curious as to how close Starscream was to the truth.

But Swoop shook her head and shrugged.

"Not much," she admitted. "I think he only told me what little he told me because I was angry, and he wanted to shut me up. The only other thing I know is that he believes that you had an accomplice, one who would know how to remove my spark safely."

Prowl made a noncommittal noise at that.

"I had three 'accomplices,' actually," he told Swoop, who gave him a surprised look as he continued. "One was Hook," he said, "whose function was indeed to safely remove your spark. He had the technical knowledge to do so, and he was a civil who had been…conscripted…to the cause, something that is rarely 100% effective. So it was easy enough to convince him. But I doubt that he remembers being involved anymore."

Swoop frowned deeply at him.

"Why wouldn't he?" she asked, perplexed.

"Because he and his gestaltmates became…troublesome. They had to be conscripted again, not long before I left."

Swoop's frown managed to deepen even more as she asked, "Why do I get the sense that you're using the word 'conscripted' but meaning something else entirely?" At the odd look that Prowl gave her, she quickly amended, "No, don't tell me. On second thought, I don't want to know."

Prowl actually smiled at her, fractionally.

"A wise decision, my queen," he said, approvingly.

Swoop glanced at him, surprised at the use of the honorific; no one else amongst the Autobots had felt so compelled, so far. Then again, this was Prowl, and because of that perhaps she shouldn't have been surprised.

"Who were the others?" she asked him after a moment.

"The second was Astrotrain," Prowl answered readily enough, "but as it turned out his part in the plan never happened. And since he was contacted and given instructions via a third, neutral, party, he never knew much in the first place."

"And the third?" Swoop asked.

And Prowl actually hesitated. He rose from his perch on the corner of his desk and paced again for a contemplative moment before eventually turning back to Swoop.

"The third," he announced quietly, "was Thundercracker."

Swoop blinked slowly at him once. Twice.

"Thundercracker?" she echoed, for a moment crazily certain that she had misheard him.

"Thundercracker," Prowl confirmed with a nod, and when Swoop just continued to blink blandly at him, he added, "Big? Blue? Flies?"

"I _know_ who Thundercracker is," Swoop responded peevishly. "I just…I don't…I don't understand _why_…"

"He had…personal reasons," Prowl answered. "And in point of fact, he was not my accomplice. I was _his_."

"It was his idea," Swoop realized dazedly, once she had deduced his meaning.

"Yes," Prowl answered, although she hadn't really asked a question. "His idea, my plan. Except that things didn't go exactly according to that plan." At the look Swoop gave him, he added, "You weren't supposed to end up in stasis. In fact, you weren't supposed to remain on Cybertron at all, which was why we had needed Astrotrain. What we had planned was, essentially, a kidnapping to keep you away from Megatron, but as it turned out…"

Swoop had started to pace even before Prowl's voice trailed off, her mind whirling. She had been barking up the wrong tree, indeed. She had been giving Prowl all sorts of credit for nobility. _Starscream_ had been giving him grudging credit for nobility or at least for proper dedication to her family. But that hadn't really been the case at all. It hadn't been _Prowl _at all, not really. He had only decided or had been convinced to do what he did best: formulate a plan. If anyone had been truly noble, it had been…

"_Why_?" she plaintively asked, overwhelmed.

Prowl gave her a troubled look and thought about lying. But given that he'd just held up lying as one of Starscream's cardinal sins, he knew that in good conscience he couldn't do that. Yet, he knew that he couldn't tell her the truth, either. So that left evasion.

"I can't tell you that," he said with genuine regret. "I'm sorry, my queen, but I can't."

Swoop gave him a hard look.

"Because you don't know?" she asked demandingly, almost imperiously, and it was another opportunity for him to lie. Another opportunity that he didn't take. He shook his head.

"No, I know why," he answered quietly. "I know exactly why. But it isn't my place to tell you. You'll have to ask him."

"Sure," Swoop responded acidly. "The next time I'm trying to blow him out of the sky, I'll take a moment to have a friendly chat first."

Prowl gave her a wry look, and then he reached for a datapad that was lying on his desk. He dumped the data that it contained and then tapped some new information into it. And then he wordlessly handed the device to Swoop, who took it from him with a quizzical frown.

"What's this?" she asked.

"That," Prowl answered, "is a private comm frequency that will get you through directly to Thundercracker. It's heavily encrypted, so when and if you decide to call, you shouldn't set off any alarms either here or at Decepticon Headquarters."

Swoop frowned at him.

"You've been in contact with him all this time?" she asked, somewhat amazed.

Prowl shook his head.

"No, not at all," he answered mildly. "Not since shortly before we left Cybertron, at any rate. In the unlikely event that you had survived the war while in the stasis vault on Cybertron, and in the extremely unlikely event that you had ended up being one of the sparks that we brought with us, and in the even more extremely unlikely event that you subsequently ended up being joined with a body at some point in time…he wanted to be kept informed. So, since you've beaten extraordinary odds against you…" He shrugged as his voice trailed off.

"Have you contacted him?" Swoop asked. "About me, I mean?"

"No," Prowl answered quietly. "No, I decided to leave that to you…in the event that you thought to ask me what happened before he found out about you himself. Whether or not you contact him now is entirely your decision to make."

Swoop stared down at the datapad in her hands, trying to coax her whirling thoughts into settling. She didn't have much luck. Dazedly, she turned away from Prowl and began to head toward his office door, intent on finding someplace quiet, where she could sit down, alone, and think. She was steps away from the door when it occurred to her that she was forgetting something. She halted her retreat abruptly and turned to face Prowl again.

"Thank you, Prowl," she said quietly. "Thank you for this," she said, waving the datapad in the air, "but more than that…thank you for your part in saving me. I…I owe you my life, and that's more than I can ever repay."

Prowl inclined his head, acknowledging her words, but he said, "You owe me nothing, my queen. I was…merely trying to do something of my duty in an otherwise untenable situation. But I am gratified that I, that _we_, managed to succeed in the long run, even though very little went according to plan."

Swoop smiled.

"You do know what they say about the best laid plans, don't you?" she teased lightly.

Prowl grimaced.

"Oh, I'm very familiar with that one, yes," he answered ruefully.

Swoop only smiled at him again, and then she was gone.

* * *

_Oh, what a tangled web we weave…Poor Swoop. I keep dumping crap on her. And it's only going to get worse for her, poor girl, starting with the very next chapter…_


	17. 15: Relativity

_**15: Relativity**_

In some ways, Swoop reflected, it was just nice to be outside. She'd had little opportunity or occasion to fly over the past couple of months, and so it was nice to do so. It helped that it was a warm and cloudless day in her current location, three-quarters of the way down the Baja Peninsula, meandering her way toward the agreed-upon rendezvous location, some uninhabited spot on the western coast of Central America. The sunlight was pleasantly warm on her wings, her body, and she always appreciated warmth. She was flying low, mostly to stay out of the main commercial flight paths, and when the whim struck her, she dove down to skim the placid surface of the ocean beneath her, keeping an eye out for pods of dolphins, which were always fun to play with.

The excursion would have been nothing but pleasant, were it not for the knife of uncertainty and nervousness that was twisting her innards.

Whether or not to contact Thundercracker had been a difficult decision to make, and Swoop had ultimately required counsel, a sounding board, in order to make it. Her favorite sounding board was and always had been Snarl. He was an individual of very few words, was instead a listener and a deep thinker, although for the longest time only Swoop had been aware of the latter quality. Once Snarl had listened to and thought about a problem, Swoop had long ago discovered that he tended to dispense excellent, if laconic and tactlessly-delivered, advice. And so she had sought him out yet again.

She had been determined to be vague with Snarl, to give him only enough detail that he could understand the problem at hand and the decision that she needed to make. But as usual, she had ended up helplessly spewing absolutely everything at him instead, holding nothing back, reiterating much of what Starscream and then Prowl had told her down to the last detail. Snarl had heard her out quietly, his face entirely impassive, never interrupting her, and then he had taken some time to digest what she'd told him.

And then he'd said, very quietly, "I know you, Swoop. If you don't contact him, the not knowing will drive you crazy."

And Snarl had been right; the not knowing had already been driving her crazy, but she had apparently needed someone to point that fact out to her in order to nudge her into action. So, she had decided to contact Thundercracker right then and there, before her courage left her and before she could think too much about the decision. Snarl had stayed with her for moral support, if nothing else, and Swoop had been glad of his silent, steady, supportive company.

The conversation, such as it was, had been very brief. The tone of Thundercracker's voice had made it very plain that he had been utterly shocked to be hearing from her, of all people, but he had quickly told her that he couldn't speak freely at Decepticon Headquarters, and they'd made arrangements to meet in person the next day. When the conversation, such as it had been, had ended, Snarl had immediately offered to go with her, but Swoop had declined his offer, immediately determined to go alone. Although Snarl had thought going alone to be a very bad idea, given who she was, he knew better than to try to dissuade her when she'd made up her mind about something. The most that he could do was to help her to slip out of Autobot Headquarters that night since leaving unseen was easier to do at night than during the day. And that was exactly what Snarl had done. He'd distracted the sentries while Swoop had slipped out and silently flown off into the night, carefully avoiding being detected by the surveillance cameras.

Swoop had known that she would be missed the next day, but she had put enough distance between herself and Headquarters overnight that she hoped to be able to complete her clandestine meeting before she'd be located and retrieved. So far, she was still alone, and she'd already turned off her comm so that she couldn't be contacted or tracked that way.

And it wasn't long before she reached the rendezvous location. It was a lovely but lonely stretch of shoreline, rocky and turbulent, waves crashing rhythmically and unceasingly against unyielding rocks in plumes of glittering white spray and foam. She found Thundercracker sitting cross-legged on top of a large and mostly flat outcropping of rock, bright and warm sunlight glinting off of his azure armor. He was far enough from the shoreline that he wasn't getting wet, and he was staring out over the surf, at the horizon, apparently deep in thought, so deep that he didn't hear Swoop approach. When she made a small but deliberate noise to announce her presence, he started violently, and as his gaze settled on her, his eyes narrowed at her questioningly.

"You look different," Thundercracker announced without preamble.

Swoop frowned in confusion, but then she nodded; she sometimes forgot all about her new body.

"It was…necessary," she answered quietly.

Thundercracker nodded, and then he slid off of the outcropping. He stood there for a long moment, still as the black rocks that surrounded them. He regarded Swoop silently, staring at her, studying her long enough that she eventually had to fight the urge to fidget nervously. And then, when she was certain that she could bear his scrutiny no longer, Thundercracker finally spoke again.

"I suppose that I should come right to the point," he rumbled at her, barely loud enough to be heard over the surf and the fitful onshore wind, "since we probably don't have much time before one or the other of us is missed."

"True enough," Swoop answered with a nod, going for calm.

Thundercracker slowly stepped closer to her then, slowly enough that she didn't feel threatened, until he was practically within arm's reach. He was close enough that he could further lower his voice when he spoke, yet she could still hear him over the background noise.

"To my knowledge," Thundercracker informed Swoop levelly, "I was the last person to be…with…the queen before she was…before she died. Given that, there is an extremely high probability that you…are my offspring."

In response, Swoop could only stare up at him in baffled shock, her mouth opening and closing ineffectually as she fought to think of something, anything, to say. But words completely failed her, and Thundercracker found himself adding, almost bitterly, "I was…a favorite of hers, and she wanted another child. She didn't believe that any of her daughters were…worthy. That she chose me was her way of honoring me, I suppose."

Swoop continued to stare at him for a long moment. Unbidden, she suddenly recalled what Mirage had told her about their mother being so very certain that she would be a flier; suddenly, her mother's certainty made much more sense…

"I don't…" she started to say, finally finding her voice, but then she interrupted herself. "No, I _do_ understand," she said. "I understand what you're saying. But it's…this…This is something of a…surprise?"

Thundercracker gave her a wry little smile, watching as she moved to hitch herself up onto the same outcropping that he'd been sitting on because her knees were suddenly feeling a little weak.

"No more of a surprise than it is to me, I assure you," Thundercracker answered her very seriously. "I had pretty much given up all hope that you had survived. It's been so long, and the chances that you were still alive somewhere, some_how,_ were…were…"

Swoop drew her knees up into her chest, shivering uncontrollably, the constant wind and Thundercracker's revelation having chilled her. The sudden and emotion-charged tremor in Thundercracker's voice as it trailed off surprised her, and she stared up him, conflicting emotions coursing through her as well. He had always been her enemy, mostly because she had been told that he was. But she had never felt any strong, personal animosity toward him, in particular, not the way that she did toward Starscream and pretty much any other Decepticon. The lack of such a feeling toward Thundercracker had always seemed strange to her, but now, perhaps, it actually made sense.

"Most of the sparks in the stasis vault where we hid you were destroyed during the course of the war," Thundercracker was saying meanwhile, "and I didn't know whether or not the sparks that, so Prowl told me, the Autobots had taken with them from Cybertron were still viable at all. I often had thoughts of contacting Prowl and asking him about that, but…it was better not to know, in some ways." At the questioning look that Swoop gave him, he elaborated, "If I didn't know…then there was still hope. And then even when you Dinobots appeared…Well, forgive me, but you weren't generally given credit for having sparks at all, amongst us…"

Swoop grimaced at that.

"I'm hardly surprised," she said with a derisive snort. "Until all of this happened with me, I'm pretty sure that some of the Autobots _still_ didn't give us that much credit …" She paused then as her voice trailed off, thinking, and then she added, trying to sound more collected than she felt, "Well, at least now I know why you did what you did. I didn't understand it at all, when Prowl told me, and he refused to explain, said that it wasn't his place. He said that I had to ask you about it, and I guess now I understand why he insisted on that."

Thundercracker gave her a haunted look, and then he, too, hitched himself onto the outcropping that she was sitting on. He sat himself near to her but not touching her, and he turned toward her so that he could lock his gaze with hers.

"I could _not_ sit by and let Megatron do to you what he wanted to do," he said quietly but very intensely. "Even if it ultimately turned out that you weren't…mine, it wasn't…It wasn't _right_."

Swoop blinked at him, surprised by his deep and vehement conviction. She was about to say something to him when he slid off the outcropping again and began to pace, his movements restless, almost frantic.

"_None_ of what happened then was right," he said as he paced. "Not what she did…and not what we did. But I couldn't stop it, not by myself. I knew that there were a few others, including Prowl, who weren't entirely happy with all of the…details…of the plan, too. But there weren't nearly enough of us, certainly not enough of us to do anything about it before it was far too late. But then I realized that at the _very_ least I could try to keep you out of Megatron's hands."

Swoop nodded, more to herself than to Thundercracker.

"And so you spoke to Prowl about it," she said quietly, "knowing that he was…unhappy in some ways, too."

"Yes," Thundercracker answered with a nod, his pacing slowing and then halting. He turned to face Swoop as he added, "I had thought merely to take you someplace _far_ away, someplace safe. Prowl thought it a better idea to make it look as if you had been accidentally killed first, collateral damage, so that Megatron wouldn't keep looking for you. But as it turned out…"

Swoop nodded absently.

"I know," she said. "Things didn't go entirely according to plan."

"That's one way to put it," Thundercracker muttered.

Silence fell between them then. For long minutes there was just the wind, the crashing waves, and the occasional cry of a seabird. Swoop was trying to untangle the knot that her thoughts had become, and Thundercracker… When she looked at him, Swoop didn't know what to think at all.

She had known, distantly and in a clinical sort of way, that she had to have a father. However, she also knew that when it came to royal offspring, the fathers weren't deemed important, were merely seen as necessary but ultimately inconsequential donors. And usually, they neither had nor particularly wanted any contact with their offspring. From her reading, she had learned that most royal offspring didn't know, much less care, who their father was. And as for her own father…Swoop had simply assumed that he no longer existed. It had been a long time, and the war had certainly taken its toll, so simple probability had shaped her assumption. It had also occurred to her that, possibly, even if her father still existed he might have no idea that he had fathered her at all. Given all of that, she had also come to think of her father as inconsequential, or at the very least she had quickly come to the conclusion that she would never know who he had been.

And yet again, she'd been wrong. So very wrong. And, obviously, Thundercracker took far more of an interest in her and her welfare than was common for those who fathered royal offspring, enough so to have risked his own life to remove her from a situation that would have been very disagreeable for her and that he considered to be wrong. Of course, it was possible that Thundercracker was mistaken…but somehow Swoop knew that he wasn't mistaken. She wasn't sure from where that sudden and certain knowledge was stemming, but it was there, palpable, and it was very strong. And even if it hadn't been there, the relationship was an easy-enough thing to confirm or disprove. A few scans and…

Except that it wasn't likely that Thundercracker would be willing to accompany her to Autobot Headquarters to run such scans. Because he was her enemy. Or _their_ enemy, at least; suddenly, Swoop wasn't quite so willing to consider him an enemy, an inclination that was fueled by her suddenly-held knowledge. And she was curious, too. Given what she now knew of him, many things that she had taken for granted about Thundercracker, and many of the things that she had been told all of her life, suddenly made no sense. Foremost…

"Why did you stay?" she asked Thundercracker quietly, curiously. "With Megatron, I mean," she clarified when he gave her an odd look.

The question caught Thundercracker off-guard, even though he supposed that it shouldn't have surprised him that she would ask. It was a reasonable, logical question, given what he'd done.

"I had…_have_…a few personal reasons to do so," he answered as quietly as she had asked the question. "But mostly," he continued, "I thought it best to remain in a position where I could keep an eye on Megatron and the things that he did in the future. If he had any of the sparks from the vault where we hid you joined, then there was a chance that…"

"There was a chance that he would eventually find me," Swoop finished, understanding, as Thundercracker's voice trailed off. Thundercracker nodded solemnly and, attempting to lighten the mood a bit, Swoop added, "I'll bet you had some tense moments after the Stunticons were created. And the Aerialbots, too, I suppose."

Thundercracker smiled faintly and said, "I've always tried to go a little easier on the latter, just in case. Funny how it never once occurred to me to go easier on you and the other Dinobots…"

Swoop smiled.

"Oh, we're pretty tough cookies," she assured him sincerely. "No serious harm done, really."

"I'm glad," Thundercracker answered, smiling back almost warmly. "Truly," he added sincerely. He paused then, thinking, regarding her appraisingly. "But…I have a question," he eventually ventured, hesitantly.

"Shoot," Swoop answered, shrugging.

"Starscream," Thundercracker said.

"Ah," Swoop responded, immediately and almost reflexively looking away.

"He was acting very strangely before he…left," Thundercracker persisted. "And now that I know about you, and…and thinking about how I used to feel and behave when, uh, under the influence… I'm seeing some similarities now, in hindsight, and I have to wonder…"

Swoop looked back at Thundercracker, meeting his curious and questioning gaze squarely.

"I imprinted on him," she told him calmly enough, "when I had been captured a while back."

"I see," Thundercracker responded flatly, automatically understanding every one of the implications of what she said…and not wanting to think about them at all.

"We…met," Swoop continued awkwardly. "Megatron had ordered him to destroy me, but he decided not to, for whatever reason, so we went our separate ways afterward. But there was a…complication." When Thundercracker just frowned at her, she added, "The imprint didn't break, and that's why he was acting so strangely. And ultimately it was why he left. Well, that and Megatron finding out that I was still alive, which as I'm sure you can imagine Megatron was…less than happy about."

Thundercracker grimaced at that.

"I'm sure," he murmured.

"So…Starscream's at Autobot Headquarters now," Swoop finished. "We've been trying to treat the…uh, condition between us, but nothing has worked so far."

"But why didn't the imprint break?" Thundercracker asked after a moment of thought. "I've never heard of such a thing."

Swoop sighed a long and weary sigh.

"It's…a very long story," she said. "Involving things about Starscream that…I'm really not at liberty to talk about, actually, given that he's sort of a patient, in a way. And besides, I'm not even sure that my thinking is correct."

Thundercracker opened his mouth to persist in questioning her, but then he subsided. And then he moved to settle on the outcropping next to Swoop again.

"Well," he said quietly after a moment spent staring out over the crashing surf. "I'm glad that he's safe, at least."

Swoop turned her head to give him an odd look, surprise liberally mixing with confusion.

"Really?" she asked.

Thundercracker smirked.

"Whatever the Autobots might have told you," he said ruefully, "we actually don't all hate each other. Starscream is a gigantic pain in the afterburner, sure, and he has a singular talent for annoying me. But he _is_ my wingmate. and he has been for a long, long time, and I do care about what happens to him. So I was…worried."

Swoop smiled slightly at him.

"I'll tell him you said so," she said lightly.

"Oh, please don't," Thundercracker answered with a snort. "I'll never hear the end of it."

Swoop chuckled, and then another silence, this one almost companionable, fell between them. Swoop closed her eyes and canted her face upward, appreciating the warmth of the sun on her face for a few moments, but then she felt compelled to murmur, without looking at Thundercracker. "You could be safe, too, you know."

"Excuse me?" he answered distractedly.

Swoop shrugged.

"It seems to me," she said, "that Megatron could connect the dots pretty easily if he set his mind to it. I'm sure that, like Starscream, he believes that what happened is entirely Prowl's fault, but if he puts just a little thought into it… You could be in danger."

Thundercracker frowned.

"I doubt it," he said. "He hasn't 'connected the dots' yet, and it's been thousands of years now. He…seems to believe that I am a mostly-loyal subordinate. I've learned to play the role well enough."

"But he didn't have any reason to suspect that I was still alive for most of that time," Swoop insisted. "Now that he knows that I _am_ alive…he's bound to wonder why at some point. Isn't he?"

Thundercracker thought about that for a moment.

"I…suppose," he said slowly, uncertainly.

Swoop turned toward him then in sudden urgency, insistently holding his gaze as she said, quietly but intensely, "Come back with me. We can confirm our…relationship, and I promise that no one will harm you, just as no one's harmed Starscream. And then I'll know that you're…safe."

Thundercracker stared at her, surprised and touched by her concern for him. He hadn't expected that, not at all. He'd expected her to disbelieve him, even perhaps to be angry. He'd expected that she would hate him, an enemy, and that she wouldn't be able to see beyond that. He'd half-expected that she would be too stupid to understand what he told her, long-ingrained propaganda being the hard-to-overcome thing that it was. But most of all, he'd expected her not to care. He'd been prepared for that, prepared to accept that he would always care about her and want to protect her but that she would not return any kind of sentiment, that she would likely, in fact, rebuff him entirely since he was beneath her. Royals were very arrogant and very cold that way; family beyond their mother and their siblings meant little to them, and those outside of their caste were generally seen as merely useful tools, at best.

But Swoop wasn't cold, perhaps because she had not been raised as a royal, had in fact been surrounded mostly by civils for her entire life as she knew it, and so she did not seem to have the typical superior royal-caste mindset, and that actually gave Thundercracker pause. He had always been told that their mindset was the royal caste's birthright, that it was ingrained, simply a property of their collective being…but that obviously wasn't the case because he could already tell, even from very brief exposure, that Swoop was like no royal that he had ever known. So obviously, the mindset was instead merely a result of upbringing, not something inborn at all, as he'd always been told, and this made him faintly and illogically angry at likely long-dead individuals who spread such misinformation. And it had definitely given him something to think about…

And Swoop obviously wasn't stupid, yet she seemed to believe and to accept with odd and completely unexpected equanimity what he had told her, even though as far as he knew she had no real reason to do so. She wasn't angry, she apparently didn't hate him, and she apparently cared about his welfare. And Starscream's, which was perhaps the most surprising thing of all.

And Thundercracker wasn't sure how to react to any of it, and he certainly wasn't sure how to answer her offer. He simply stared at Swoop.

"There's no reason for you to keep an eye on Megatron anymore," she was saying. "There's no reason for you to stay there, in potential danger, even if it's just a remote chance of danger. Come with me," she repeated imploringly, "where I know you'll be safe."

Thundercracker blinked at her, but then he shook his head. Sadly. Regretfully.

"There _is_ a reason for me to stay," he said quietly. "I appreciate the offer, Swoop, I really, truly do. And, honestly, I'd…love the opportunity to get to know you. But…I can't leave Skywarp behind to deal with the fall-out of Starscream _and_ me leaving. That wouldn't be fair to him."

"He could come, too," Swoop offered immediately, insistently. "We'd just have to contact him, and—"

"I don't think that he would want to come," Thundercracker interrupted her sadly, quietly. "He's…very loyal. And in order to convince him…I would need to explain some things to him that would be very difficult to explain and even more difficult for him to accept. So I'm—"

Thundercracker's words cut off abruptly as he jerked his head around. Swoop stared at him, confused, and then he turned back to her and asked, urgently, "Do you hear that?"

Swoop cocked her head, listening intently…and then she heard it. The telltale whining rumble of Seeker engines; the sound had been masked by the surf.

"Yes," she said, meeting Thundercracker's gaze in dismay.

"Get out of here," Thundercracker immediately ordered, his tone of voice brooking no argument. "I'll hold them off as long as I can."

Swoop hesitated, loath to leave him to what was surely his doom, but then she moved to obey. But it was too late. What seemed to Swoop to be mere milliseconds later, the sky was littered with a squadron of unfamiliar Seekers, Megatron was landing…and Soundwave, although she tried to evade him, had her firmly in his grasp. And Thundercracker, after a brief but valiant fight, ended up restrained by two of his Seeker comrades…but at least he was alive.

Megatron approached them once it was all over, a disturbingly delighted smile on his face.

"Well, Thundercracker!" he boomed jovially. "When Soundwave detected that odd, incoming, not-quite-encrypted-enough signal yesterday, I thought that you'd be heading out to see Starscream." He leveled an ambiguous and measuring gaze on Swoop and said, almost lightly, "Imagine my surprise." He approached Swoop then, halting a few paces away from her, staring appraisingly down at her. "For such a small thing," he eventually informed her, "you have become a rather large nuisance, Dinobot."

Swoop glared back at him, her eyes narrowed and her chin raised defiantly, refusing to be frightened.

"I'm thrilled," she growled.

Megatron smirked and then circled her, still appraisingly, taking in her new body.

"You are Eclipse," he eventually murmured to her, "are you not?"

Swoop couldn't quite prevent the surprised look that bloomed on her face, and in response Megatron elaborated as he continued to circle her, "I've had some time to consider the issue at hand, and it's the only thing that makes sense. Queens do not come from nowhere," he said. And then he stopped his circling, leaned toward her, and lowered his voice to a more menacing level as he added, "And I watched all nine of your sisters die. And your mother, of course. But not you… No, I only saw your body and heard lame excuses from Prowl," he spat, the name a derisive epithet, "about why you were dead. It all makes sense, now. Well, except the part about _why_."

And with that, he suddenly lurched around and focused his speculative and angry attention on Thundercracker, who didn't so much as flinch under Megatron's penetrating glare; Swoop had to give him credit for that. He regarded Megatron with outward calm, at least, and said nothing.

"To an extent," Megatron said to Thundercracker, his voice low, taunting, "I can understand what Starscream did. Allowing this…creature to live certainly has the potential to undermine me, and he lives for that. I should never have allowed him to…meet…with her without sending along some insurance. I see that now, but what's done is done. But _you_…What part do you play in this, Thundercracker? Why are you here, now, with her? And why did she contact you?"

Thundercracker merely continued to stare levelly at him.

"You would do well," Megatron advised him when it was clear that Thundercracker had no intention of answering his questions, "to answer me. I can find out the answers to my very simple questions, of course, but that won't be at all pleasant for you. It would be so much easier, on all of us, if you would just speak up."

And then Thundercracker said, slowly and quietly, "I would imagine that you're going to kill me because I know about her now. So why should I tell you anything?"

"Oh, this doesn't have to end in anyone's death, Thundercracker!" Megatron answered, almost lightly. "Not yours. Not hers," he added, gesturing at Swoop, "and not even…oh, Skywarp's." He paused then, looking for a reaction, but was frustrated again. Thundercracker was silent, stone-faced, for a long moment, then:

"Unlike Starscream," he said evenly, "I don't bargain, much less grovel, for my life. And she," he continued, gesturing with his chin at Swoop, "is far more valuable to you alive and unharmed, as I'm sure you're aware, so I know that you're bluffing by threatening her. And Skywarp," he finished with impressive calm, "means nothing to me beyond the fact that he is a competent-enough wingmate. So…care to try again?"

At that, Megatron snarled, his face a ferocious scowl, and backhanded Thundercracker across his jaw with enough force to stagger the Seeker. He would have fallen if not for the restraining grasp of his comrades.

"I see that you have learned insolence quite well from Starscream," Megatron growled at him. "Really, I'm surprised that you'd be stupid enough to emulate him, given what you've witnessed over the years. I've always given you credit for being the brains of your trine, Thundercracker, but perhaps it's been Skywarp all along."

"No," Thundercracker answered still levelly even as he worked his aching jaw. "No, he's just the blind one, is all."

Megatron growled again, but physically controlled himself.

"I will deal with you in a moment," he snarled, the words an ugly promise. He turned back to Swoop then. "Or perhaps," he said, regarding her speculatively, "I can simply find out from _you_, my dear. In fact, I could find out _many_ interesting things from you, couldn't I? Of course, what Thundercracker said is true; since you refuse to die, you have managed to make yourself valuable to me…until you produce a successor. But after that…"

Swoop glared at him, resolving to be as calm and at least as seemingly unafraid as Thundercracker had been.

"Do your worst," she growled mutinously, her face a sneer.

Megatron smirked at her, leaned in very close, intimately close, and whispered, "Oh, don't worry. I intend to."

And then suddenly, somehow, Swoop's world started to go black, as if she'd been drugged, although she hadn't felt anything. Then again, since it was Soundwave who was restraining her…She wasn't at all sure what he was capable of. No one was. No one wanted to know, really. All Swoop knew was that she was losing consciousness and that it really didn't matter how or why. She could do nothing to prevent it, however, and the last thing she heard as she was lowered with incongruous gentleness to the ground and then as the blackness completely enveloped her like a thick shroud, was the sound of repeated fusion cannon fire, the dull clang and thud of bodies falling lifelessly against rock and sand, and then Thundercracker starting to scream helplessly…

* * *

_Well! I hope you all enjoyed Thundercracker's Darth Vader moment… The things I do to the poor guy… :)_

_**Next time:**__ Ouchies for poor Swoop, I'm afraid. The things I do to her, too…_

_Annnnnd since I haven't done any in a while, have some review replies:_

_**Felina Fullstop:**__ Yeah, the Prowl who lives in this AU is quite different than your average portrayal of him. Heck, he's very different than __**my own**__ general portrayal of him. I generally give him an angsting-behind-the-cold-façade flavor, but in this…Well, there's no façade, for one thing. What you see is what you get. And he sees things in a very black-and-white kind of way, befitting one who is supposed to be dedicated to/ruled by logic, so the body that he wears suits his personality very well. But anyway, I have noticed a general trend of writers making him "young" lately, but honestly I've never seen him that way. And in this particular AU, he has…quite the backstory. I'm __**really**__ looking forward to writing it. :D_

_But yeah, I wish that I had more of an opportunity to address Jack's and Ratch's whole take on all of this mess, as well as some of the other characters' thoughts, too. Especially the other Dinobots. But since this story was originally written in two-perspective first person, it didn't leave me an opportunity to really address that in this story, and I didn't want to shoehorn stuff in there after I decided to change it all to third person. So…that's what other stories are for, yes? Given the revelation in this chapter…Well, obviously Wheeljack and Ratchet will be having stuff to deal with. Lots of stuff, in fact, the real doozy of which hasn't happened yet but will, shortly. _

_But anyway, I'm very glad that you're enjoying the story, and I hope that you continue to do so. And I know how you feel in terms of being caught up. This thing was just meant to be a few vignettes when I first conceived of it; now, it's a whole friggin' continuity, if I choose to write it al, because it sucked me in, too. And I'm extremely happy to know that I've been conveying the story well enough that other people can feel caught up as well… _

_**Starfire201: **__Yep, yep. 100% Shiny Autobots and 100% Evil Decepticons bugs me to no end, to be sure. No one is really all one way or the other; everyone is some shade of grey. And the backstory of this AU gives me a chance to tarnish a bit here and polish a bit there, as I see fit. But it's a very fine line to walk. You don't want to make the bad guys too good or the good guys too bad because then the characters start to ring untrue. However, one of the fun things in this continuity, for me, is attempting to incorporate/justify some of the stuff that's in, for instance, the characters' canon profiles. Like, for this continuity, I decided that I wanted to give Thundercracker a concrete and logical reason for his nebulous canonical "doubts," and thus the whole thing that's revealed in this chapter was born. But in any case, it's one of those delicate balance kind of things. _

_But anyway, in this case, I think that Swoop as a "new" and strangely impartial being when it comes to her species's history has an interesting perspective on many different things, and it will continue to make those around her think, as it did Prowl._

_And…Well, you know Starscream. He gets things sort of right most of the time, but hardly ever all right. :) This is no different. And Thundercracker…Well, I guess it's a good thing that he's the "quiet one." It means that he has less of a chance to screw up and cause others to be suspicious of him. *laughs*_

_**Ebony Kain: **__*laughs* Yeah, I'd say that Swoop could use hugs, definitely. And she'll get them…eventually. But not quite yet, I'm afraid. I have more Very Mean Things to do to her first because I'm a very evil abuser of those who live in my head…_

_**Supermoi:**__ I'm very glad that you like the story! It's a very fun one for me to contemplate/write/turn into a giant epic continuity. *laughs* I have dreams about it, even. I hope that you will continue to read and enjoy. And you know, it's strange: Now, having written this story and a few other (much shorter) stories in this continuity that will come along after this one is all done/posted, I find it very difficult to NOT see and think of Swoop as a girl. I actually have to be really, really careful about what pronouns I use to refer to him when writing other stories that include him…her…whatever. *laughs*_

_And you're right about the uncle. Apparently, I wasn't as subtle as I thought. *sigh* I thought that Thrust's canonically yellow eyes might be a red herring, but…apparently not, since you're at least the second person to figure it out. Ah, well. I guess I should be happy that people are thinking and wondering about it at all! ;)_

_**Shadir:**__ *laughs* Everything I write is a soap opera! ;) But yes, this whole story is all about revealing stuff about Swoop and her having to deal with it all, poor thing. So it is kind of like a detective story, in a way. I'm just surprised that she isn't completely insane by the end of it…_


	18. 16: Into the Fire

_Well…I finally finished this story, which became something completely and utterly different than what I envisioned…Geez, like a year and a half ago, when it first bonked me in the head. But I've really finished it. Including picking at it. _

_Soooooo…I figure I'm just gonna go ahead and post the rest of it now. Because if I don't, I'll just keep picking at it. Endlessly. So, enjoy the final six chapters of this story, if you've read this far…but you might want to grab a snack first and visit the bathroom. 'Cuz some of these puppies is long…_

_But then again, this story's not __**really**__ done, in the end. Because, as it turns out, I've discovered there are __**many**__ other stories in this universe to be told and many different characters – and even a few different time periods – to play with. You're all thrilled, I'm sure. :) But in the meantime...  
_

_

* * *

_

_**16: Into the Fire**_

Swoop awoke to the sound of a fierce wind howling somewhere in the distance. The small and dimly-lit room to which she awoke was bitingly cold, and she could feel even colder drafts playing over her body with every renewed howl of the wind outside. The floor on which she was lying consisted of frigid plates of sickeningly familiar purple-grey metal. Wherever she was, the walls were thin, and it was very cold outside.

She was already so cold that thinking was difficult, and she knew that moving would be a chore, but it was a necessary one. Still, for a while, an almost pleasant while, she couldn't remember quite what had happened…until it all came back to her with all the crashing insistence of a tidal wave, and she jerked upright in alarm.

Or at least she _tried_ to jerk upright in alarm.

She was chained rather securely, lying awkwardly on her side; one of her wings had been wrenched forcefully and painfully backward in order to allow the position. Whoever had put her there hadn't bothered to try to figure out how the wing folded, and it was aching insistently at her. Her hands were secured behind her back, her forearms shackled together. That set of shackles was connected by a very short chain to similar shackles that secured her ankles. This forced her knees into a deep bend and her back into an uncomfortable arch, and her entire half-frozen body was stiff and vehemently protested movement, which told her that she'd been trussed up in that position and left in this frigid little room for quite some time. When she tried to move, the tight shackles bit painfully into her limbs, but she appeared to be unhurt otherwise. It wasn't surprising since she knew that Megatron wanted her unharmed. Otherwise, she never would have woken up at all…

As if on cue, as if thinking about him had summoned him, the door to the room creaked open, and both Soundwave and Megatron entered. Megatron moved to stand in front of Swoop, glaring down at her with his arms folded over his chest. Soundwave moved around behind her and pulled at her until she was sitting uncomfortably half-upright, her back still arched and all of her weight resting on the side of her dully aching hip. She tried to think of something witty, something taunting, to say, but nothing came to her. She was afraid, truly, deeply afraid, and the fear was, for the moment, blocking her wit. So it was Megatron who spoke first.

"Well," he said, almost mildly. "Welcome back."

Swoop didn't answer for a long moment. She just stared up at him with an expression that she hoped spoke of defiance and not of the fear that was shamefully roiling its way through her. Finally, she asked, somehow managing to keep her voice level, "Why have you brought me here?"

At that, Megatron laughed. It was a genuinely amused laugh, but there was a dark and nasty edge to it, one that Swoop knew did not bode well for her.

"Oh, I just thought that we should have a little talk, my queen," he answered, the honorific decidedly sarcastic. "Besides that which we had on that 'lovely' beach, of course. Something a little more…private."

"A talk," Swoop echoed dully.

"Yes," Megatron answered agreeably.

"About how you've come to your senses and now wish to humbly devote your life to my service?" she asked, sarcasm apparently rising to the surface despite herself.

Megatron's eyes narrowed and glowed at her dangerously in response, and he crouched down so that, suddenly, they were more or less eye-to-eye.

"Don't flatter yourself, you primitive, half-animal _filth_," Megatron snarled into her face.

"Oh! So you brought me here to listen to insults that I've heard a billion times already?" Swoop asked impudently, resisting the urge to jerk fearfully away from him. Her tone earned her a sharp backhand against her cheek that was forceful enough to make her see stars.

"Insolent _child_," Megatron snarled distastefully as she fell sideways. "It will be a distinct pleasure to teach you to respect your _betters_."

Not having any hands free to break her fall, Swoop fell on her wing instead. Already damaged and wrenched, it strongly protested having to bear the brunt of her fall, pain singing along its entire width, but she clenched her jaw so as not to make a sound. She was determined that she would not give Megatron the satisfaction of any kind of reaction to whatever he did to her. And then, before she could think further, she was hauled roughly upright again, and Megatron's glowering face was suddenly in hers again. His eyes flared menacingly as he lowered his voice to a disturbingly greasy level.

"I think you know _exactly_ why I brought you here, my dear," he oozed, the sarcasm practically dripping from the endearment. "You require a successor, do you not? We can't have the royal line dying out, after all."

Glancing down at her body, he traced the deep curve of her waist to her hip, exaggerated as it was due to her position,with one finger. Clenching her jaw again so as to remain silent, Swoop fought not to jerk away from Megatron's touch, since she was fairly certain that that was what he wanted her to do.

"And at least the Autobots seem to have made you a bit less hideous for the occasion," he taunted.

She snorted at that and glowered at him. Emboldened, leaning toward him so that their faces were even closer than they had been, she spat at him venomously, "I would rather _die, _Megatron."

Megatron chuckledin obvious amusement, not moving in the slightest otherwise.

"Under normal circumstances, little queen, I would say that that could quite happily be arranged," he said. He raised a hand then to stroke her cheek with the backs of his fingers, the gesture all mocking gentleness, as he added, "But we both know that's not an option here, do we not?"

Swoop growled wordlessly in response, resisting a strong urge to turn her head and tear into his hand with her teeth. Megatron ignored her, was still busy listening to the sound of his own voice.

"Rather," he was musing, lowering his voice even more, as he leisurely moved his hand so that his fingertips trailed lightly along Swoop's jaw line and then down the length of her throat, "we simply need to make you a bit more…amenable to reason."

And before she could respond to that, Megatron was suddenly straightening from his crouch, towering over her again. "If you please, Soundwave," he said mildly, but his gaze was still menacing, and it was still entirely and venomously focused on Swoop as she stared up in confusion at him.

Soundwave's hands were suddenly on her then, meaning that the one he'd been using to hold her up was no longer supporting her. The distribution of her weight was such that she was forced to lean back heavily against Soundwave or otherwise collapse onto her painfully-damaged wing again. She was certain that this was intentional on Soundwave's part. His probing was impersonal and not at all sensuous; he was merely searching for something. And there was only one thing, Swoop realized, that he could be searching for: An interface port.

Terror slammed full-force into her then. She was very aware of Soundwave's legendary talents at hacking. She tried her best not to show any sign of fear, staring mutely but angrily up at Megatron instead, doing her best to ignore Soundwave's touch, helpless as she was to prevent it.

"You know, if your little _pet_ was here," Megatron spat scathingly as he impassively watched Soundwave poke parts of her body that he had no business poking, "I would simply have him nullify you. But since he isn't here because _you_ made him – _and_ Thundercracker – go insane, I'm afraid that I've decided to use a somewhat more…creative approach. So remember that you have only yourself _and_ your pet to blame for _everything_ that is going to happen to you here, dear Swoop."

And that was when Soundwave found the port that he wanted, the primary one that allowed access to all of her core programming. It was situated high on her chest, dangerously near to her spark chamber. Soundwave unceremoniously wrenched off the small, thick armor plate that protected it, forcing Swoop to bite down on her lip to prevent a pained and shamefully terrified cry from escaping. A mass of snaky cables extended from his wrist, and Soundwave unceremoniously jacked into Swoop. She shuddered, knowing that he would be making an attempt to access her core programming and also knowing that, despite the layers of security measures that protected that level of her being, he would succeed. And given Soundwave's talents, it likely wouldn't take him long at all to accomplish whatever he was seeking to accomplish.

Megatron saw the shudder that ran through Swoop, and he smiled down at her, sarcastically benevolent in his triumph.

"Really, though, you should be thankful," Megatron said to Swoop scathingly as a strange heat begin to radiate from the port to which Soundwave was linked**, **spreading quickly across her chest, up into her shoulders, and down into the rest of her torso. She felt the pulsing of her spark increase in speed. Whether this was out of fear or because of whatever it was that Soundwave was doing to her she didn't know. The heat might have been pleasant, given her otherwise frigid surroundings, if she hadn't known that it was likely a harbinger of very bad things to come.

"I _could_ simply force you, take you right now in this lovely little room and just as you are, all charmingly full of fight and _fear_," Megatron was continuing meanwhile. He smirked mockingly at the murderous look that Swoop gave him. "It would be…utterly delicious. But," he added with an airy, mock-regretful sigh, "I daresay that this way might be even more delicious."

Then, suddenly, he was crouching down again, in Swoop's face again, one hand coming up to grab her chin roughly and then using the grip to wrench her head backward. This time, she couldn't hold back the little grunt of discomfort that emerged from her.

"You will _beg_ for me to take you, pathetic little queen," Megatron savagely promised her. "You will _scream_ for me."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she snarled back at him. "_So_ not going to happen," she promised him.

He didn't respond, instead exchanging an amused look with Soundwave behind her. Whatever Soundwave silently communicated to him, it made Megatron nod and then smirk with satisfaction.

"Well," he said, almost cheerfully, giving Swoop a terrifying smile, "we'll see if you've changed your tune in about…oh…two hours or so."

A deep and powerful dread overcame Swoop, particularly when Soundwave disengaged himself from her. His mission was apparently accomplished, which was very bad news for her. The realization of this must have shown on her face, for all that she had been trying to hide her fear.

"There, there," Megatron soothed her mockingly, caressing her face with obscene gentleness. "There's no need for fear, little one. You might even enjoy this." He leaned closer to her then, whispered in tones that were at once menacing and lascivious, "I know you're going to _want_ it, at least."

And then, because he could, bound and tightly sandwiched as she was between him and Soundwave, Megatron leaned into her and kissed her. There was nothing gentle in the gesture. No passion, even. There was only dominance. Possessiveness. Victory. Swoop stiffened, involuntarily pressing herself back against Soundwave, not knowing what to do for a long and terrible moment…and then she finally took the opportunity to bite him, teeth grabbing and then ripping savagely into Megatron's lower lip.

Megatron didn't make a sound, but he did pull back from her in order to slap her again, hard. He was smiling, though, as he dabbed at his chin with the back of one hand.

"I can only hope," he said to her with obvious amusement as she worked her aching jaw, "that you'll still be this feisty a little later on."

He wanted her to fight him, Swoop then realized. He wanted this encounter that he was gleefully planning to be brutal, rough, and he apparently wanted her to want him, enough so to go to the trouble of having Soundwave manipulate her core programming in order to make that happen. This left Swoop in an odd position. She wanted to fight Megatron, but at the same time, she didn't want to give him anything that he wanted. And he _wanted_ her to fight, so that left…not fighting. It left submitting meekly to him, doing everything that he _didn't_ want her to do, in order to frustrate his desire for a fight. It was unthinkable. Her position was untenable.

But there was nothing that she could do about it. She could already feel the initial effects of whatever it was that Soundwave had done to her. Her senses were rapidly distorting. Insistent fire was licking its way through her body, heat building up such that she was already feeling a need to pant. She restrained the impulse as well as she could, but she knew what it meant. She'd experienced it twice before, already. Whatever Soundwave had done to her, it was fast becoming apparent that its purpose was to bring about a similar kind of situation. Only this time her energies would apparently be focused on Megatron. Things were looking bad. Very bad.

"Until then," Megatron was saying cheerfully, meanwhile, "enjoy your luxurious accommodations, my queen."

And then he was standing up and heading for the door. Soundwave rose, too, to follow him, leaving Swoop to fall back on the floor, damaged wing bending and scraping and screeching against the floor's cold plates of metal, sending her insistent pain signals that she hardly felt. The room's door creaked and clanged shut and then locked behind the two Decepticons with ominous and ringing finality, leaving Swoop to burn in frigid solitude.

* * *

_**Next time:**__ Starscream senses a disturbance in The Force. Plotting ensues._


	19. 17: Tactics

_**17: Tactics**_

Starscream jerked bolt upright on his berth, for reasons that, at first, he couldn't identify. The sensations were odd, something that he'd never experienced before, and so he couldn't classify them, not immediately. He knew only that something was wrong…that something was out of place…that…

Alarmed, he lurched off of his berth and then staggered toward the door. It slid obligingly open, giving him a view of the medbay's main ward. Ratchet was there.

"Where is she?" Starscream growled at him.

Ratchet, puzzled, turned toward Starscream and took in his posture. He was leaning heavily against the doorjamb, as if it was all that was holding him upright, and there was an almost wild look on his face. But it was different than imprint desperation, and it was too early for that anyway. It was instead, Ratchet realized, more like somewhat panicked concern.

"Who?" he asked.

Starscream scowled at him and spat, annoyed, "How many 'she's do you have around here? Swoop, of course!"

Ratchet frowned, still puzzled.

"I don't know," he said mildly, with an unconcerned shrug. "She should be here any minute, although she's already twenty minutes late, and that's really not like her at…"

The medic's voice trailed off as he watched Starscream shake his head vehemently. Once he pushed himself away from the doorway against which he'd been leaning, he approached Ratchet rather unsteadily.

"No," he said quietly but somewhat manically, his eyes fever-bright. "She isn't _here_. She isn't…she isn't on this base," he added, frowning himself as he realized the implication of what he was sensing.

"What are you talking about?" Ratchet asked, but Starscream had become inwardly focused, as if he was searching inside of himself for something. Or, Ratchet realized, suddenly uneasy, for some_one_. After a moment or two of "searching," a plainly horrified expression crossed Starscream's face, which instantly exacerbated Ratchet's unease.

"No," Starscream murmured more to himself than to Ratchet. Then: "I have to talk to Optimus Prime," he announced, suddenly and much more loudly. He spun away from Ratchet, as if to go and do exactly that. Ratchet grabbed him by a wing, since one became momentarily and conveniently close as Starscream turned away from him. Starscream's own momentum jerked him backwards.

"Whoa, Nelly!" Ratchet protested. "If you go charging off like that, you're only going to get yourself killed by someone. Tell me what's wrong."

"There's no _time_!" Starscream insisted, impatiently and forcefully jerking his wing out of Ratchet's grasp.

"_Make_ time," Ratchet insisted, brooking no argument as he raised his voice by a couple of decibel levels and stepped threateningly closer to Starscream. "Because you're not leaving here unless you do."

Starscream scowled mutinously at the medic. But then, with a mighty effort, having already learned that Ratchet was as stubborn as they came, he calmed himself and said, simply, "_He_ has her."

"Who?"

"Megatron, stupid," Starscream hissed.

"What?" Ratchet responded, instantly alarmed. "But…How?"

"I don't _know_!" Starscream almost shrieked in response. "I only know that he has her!"

"Because," Ratchet said, blinking a few times as the light dawned with sickening clarity, "you know where she is."

Starscream grimaced.

"You catch on _so_ fast," he commented sarcastically, sarcasm that Ratchet chose to ignore. And then Starscream added, "She's…on the other side of the planet. Not at Decepticon Headquarters but…but…"

"Let's go," Ratchet said, grabbing the Seeker by one arm and heading swiftly for the medbay doors, comming Optimus Prime as he did so. Snarl, who'd been one of Starscream's self-assigned guards for the day, fell into step with them as they exited, and Ratchet couldn't help but notice the almost guilty expression on his face.

"Snarl?" he asked quietly, curiously, of the Dinobot once he'd finished informing Prime that he was bringing Starscream to his office and that Swoop was possibly in danger.

"She left last night," Snarl answered him shortly and just as quietly.

"What?" Ratchet responded, alarmed. "Why? Why didn't you tell anyone?"

Snarl hesitated, taking a second to cast an odd glance at Starscream.

"Because I helped her leave," Snarl said. Ratchet opened his mouth, probably to berate him, but Snarl spoke over him, "It would take too long to explain why," he said. "And it doesn't really matter now. But I must go with the rescue party, if there will be one."

"Oh, there will be one," Starscream growled viciously before Ratchet could say anything. The expression on his face was thundering and somewhat frightening to behold. "Even if it's only a party of me." He glanced up at the big Dinobot and added with an approving nod, "And you."

Snarl nodded wordlessly, satisfied. And Ratchet just sighed a deep and resigned sigh, one full of foreboding.

* * *

Optimus Prime's office was very crowded, with little room to move. This was because, once they'd heard about Swoop, the other four Dinobots insisted on crowding themselves in, insisted on being part of the process. The result was a crowded room and somewhat short tempers.

"But I _know_ where she is!" Starscream was insisting forcefully, urgently, leaning across Optimus Prime's desk so that his face was mere inches from the Autobot leader's. He was doing his best to resist the urge to reach out and shake him, too, because he knew that doing so would only earn him a one-way trip to the brig. "I know where she is _every_ second of _every_ single day," he added desperately instead. "And where she is right now matches the location of an abandoned outpost of ours. It's in the Gobi Desert." He grabbed a datapad off of Prime's somewhat cluttered and messy desk and hurriedly scribbled a set of coordinates on it before flinging it back down on the desktop. "There."

"It makes sense," Prowl put in, as Optimus picked up the datapad and regarded it in silent thought. When Optimus gave him an odd look, he shrugged and added, "Megatron apparently doesn't want her dead anymore, or else he would have simply destroyed her. I…suspect that he's reverting to his original plan for her. But first, he will need to keep her hidden for a time. Any warrior who comes into contact with her will know exactly what she is, and he can't risk that, not until…"

"Not until she's safely broken and bent to his will, subordinated to him, so that she isn't a threat to him," Starscream said, finishing Prowl's thought with a confirming nod, all the while trying to quell the ever-rising swell of panic that was threatening to overwhelm him. It was panic not only for his own sake but also, he was surprised to discover, for Swoop's sake, completely outside of any concern for himself. Later, he would contemplate why that was so; there wasn't time now.

"But once he breaks her," Starscream continued, "he will flaunt her as ostentatiously as he can. And he _will_ break her. And he will…use her, too. I think you know _exactly_ what I mean by that," he finished pointedly, eye-to-eye with Optimus again; Optimus flinched at the implication. "We have to go, and the sooner the better," Starscream finished urgently.

"I concur," Prowl put in, quietly.

"And I need my weapons back," Starscream further insisted.

Optimus hesitated and, surprisingly, Prowl put in quietly, before his leader could say anything, "He knows the base, Prime, knows the way in, knows the way around. He has to go, and it wouldn't be fair to make him go defenseless."

"Fine," Optimus growled, slamming back in his seat, obviously not appreciating being ganged up on by his enemy's second-in-command as well as his own second-in-command. "But I swear to you, Starscream, if you—"

"Oh, think about it, idiot," Starscream replied scathingly. "I _need_ her. You've all seen that, much to my utter humiliation. I need her alive and well and sane and _not_ in Megatron's hands. So for the moment our interests overlap nicely, wouldn't you say?"

Prime glared at the Seeker. An equally scathing and condescending response to what he'd said immediately leaped to his mind. But there was a time and place for everything, and now was neither the time nor the place to get into a protracted sniping session with Starscream, who was a master of such things. So, instead, Prime sighed resignedly, but the look that he gave Starscream let the Seeker know in no uncertain terms that his tone was not at all appreciated.

"I suppose so," Optimus said to him frigidly, and Starscream at least had the grace to look somewhat chastened. "So all we need now," he added with a significant look at Prowl, "is a plan."

Prowl nodded in acknowledgment.

"Tell me about this outpost," he said, turning to face Starscream.

Nodding, knowing that Prowl would need as much detail as possible, Starscream took a moment to recall the outpost in question and then began, "It's very small, meant to be staffed by no more than eight. It served as a listening post, and it was built about ten years ago when we were closely monitoring the Chinese government."

"Why?" Optimus Prime interjected.

"That's not important," Starscream growled. Then he continued, "It has a control room, a few other rooms, some living quarters, all in a simple radial layout with the control room as the hub. As I recall, all of its valuable equipment was removed and redistributed long ago, including its automated security system, and I doubt that Megatron would deem it necessary to re-equip the place just for the duration of this…project."

Prowl nodded and Starscream continued, "At the moment, Swoop is in one of the living quarters, I believe, which would be a logical place to hold her. Those are on the northern side of the building. Overall, the building itself isn't heavily fortified and really shouldn't present a problem…once we get to it."

"What do you mean?" Optimus Prime asked.

"The environment is…hostile," Starscream answered. "Especially now, in the middle of winter. It will be frigid, and the winds are…" He shivered and then finished, "The winds are brutal this time of year. Plus, there are no roads in the area and the terrain is treacherous, so you grounders will have difficulty. I would suggest bringing those with sturdier alternate forms and anyone who can both fly and fight well."

Prime nodded, agreeing. Then a thought occurred to him, and he said, "We have a few jet packs available, as well. Perhaps we shouldn't approach by ground at all, if we keep the party small enough that we can equip anyone who doesn't already have flight capability."

Starscream thought about that for a moment and then said, slowly "The winds are very tricky, especially for those who are…inexperienced…" He paused, his eyes narrowing calculatedly, and then added, "But if your packs are able to maintain enough altitude to stay above them until the last possible moment…that might be the best option, yes." Addressing Prowl with a significant look, he finished, "The outpost is situated on a small rise overlooking a flat and wide-open plain. There's no cover whatsoever for a ground approach."

Prowl grimaced unhappily.

"So even approaching by air, we will be spotted quickly," he concluded.

"And from very far away," Starscream confirmed with a grim nod. "_If_ they're looking, that is…and if we're lucky, they won't be."

Prowl frowned at Starscream for a moment but then nodded in comprehension half a second later.

"_Because_," he said, "Megatron would have no reason to suspect that we would know where he is."

"Exactly," Starscream answered with a sly grin. "He knows that I'm still imprinted on Swoop, or at least that I was when I left, but I highly doubt that he understands all of the implications of that. And—"

"And even if he did," Prowl surmised, a faint echoing smile on his face as he finished Starscream's thought,, "it's not likely that there will be many Decepticons there, due to both the size of the outpost and the…secrecy required for the moment. So perhaps there will be no one to act as sentry. Or perhaps they will simply deem it unnecessary."

Starscream nodded.

"Indeed," he said. "Soundwave will surely be there, because he knows about Swoop already. And with him will be the full complement of his annoying little minions, of course. Beyond that…there may be some very expendable grunts, whom Megatron can and will destroy if he deems it necessary. They should not present much of a problem. Soundwave and Megatron, however…"

"Not a problem, either," Slag suddenly announced, with a ferocious snort. He nudged Snarl next to him with his elbow, and the two exchanged wide, anticipatory grins and then a ringing high-five. Grimlock and Sludge snickered in full agreement.

Starscream gave Prowl an amused look as the few others in the room with them chuckled at Slag's confidence, too.

"They do come in handy, don't they?" he observed.

Prowl sighed wearily.

"When they're in a cooperative mood, yes," he said, then qualified, "_Sometimes_."

"In this case," Optimus Prime added half-jokingly, "since it's Swoop in danger, we could _probably_ just send the four of them in and—"

"And they _and_ Swoop would probably all end up dead," Prowl finished flatly. "No, they're too emotionally close," he decided. "They shouldn't be there at all."

"Snarl's coming," Starscream immediately insisted, shaking his head. At the odd, questioning look that Prowl leveled at him, he added, his eyes innocently wide, "I promised him. You wouldn't want me to break my promise, would you?"

"Why on Earth did you—?" Prowl began, annoyed, but then interrupted himself. "No, never mind. I don't want to know. Well," he added after a moment, with a resigned sigh, "I suppose that if one of them must go, Snarl _is_ the best choice."

"Why's that?" Starscream asked, frowning.

"Because," Optimus answered wryly, "he hasn't been in a fight in months and, worse, it's been overcast all week." At the baffled look that Starscream gave him, due mostly to the logical disconnect in what Prime had said, he explained, "Two things make Snarl happy: Combat and sunlight. If he doesn't get enough of either one, he gets…grouchy."

"Very, _very_ grouchy," Prowl elaborated.

"And lately, he hasn't had enough of _both_ of them," Optimus finished. "So!" he added. "Personnel, then…"

And as they fell to hurriedly planning the fine and final details of the rescue mission, Starscream felt compelled to murmur at Prowl, "Just like old times, eh Prowl?"

Prowl only grimaced in response, but Starscream could have sworn that it was an almost nostalgic grimace.

* * *

_If you're curious…The average temperature in the Gobi Desert in January ranges between -20 and +5 degrees, Fahrenheit, depending on where you are, since the Gobi is big. (That's about -30 to -15, Celsius) With extremes to -50 degrees, Fahrenheit. (-46, Celsius) Contrary to popular belief, not all deserts are warm. Most, in fact, aren't. Add in wind speeds, which routinely reach 140kph (87mph) in the Gobi. Plus, it's one of the driest places in the world, any rain that it might otherwise receive being blocked by the Himalayas. It's…not a welcoming place at all. Which, of course, is why I chose it. ;)_

_**Next time:**__ Y'know what happens when you piss off that guy who becomes The Incredible Hulk? Yeah, Swoop's kinda like that…_


	20. 18: Karma

_**18: Karma**_

Everything that was happening around Swoop seemed to be happening in extreme slow motion. She didn't know if it was an effect of the altered core programming or if it was just one of those pivotal life moments that always seemed to happen in slow motion.

An enraged and impressively feral snarl had brought her marginally to her senses. She'd been sprawled face-down on the purple-grey metal floor, shivering from cold and trembling from the searing pain that was lancing through her entire body but that in particular radiated from her spark and from a certain small and very specialized port that was embedded in her abdomen. She pushed herself up first to her hands and knees, her arms shaking in protest as they struggled to bear the weight of her torso, and then pushed herself further back, onto her heels. Once upright, she stared dazedly around herself.

Slowly, fighting to see through the thick fog that seemed to cloud everything, Swoop realized that the snarl that had roused her had come from none other than Thundercracker. He was certainly not in the best physical shape, either, horribly damaged in places. One of his wings was mostly gone, only a painful-looking stump remaining. The damage wasn't fresh, though, and she realized then that he had no doubt been punished, perhaps tortured for information, during that time that she had been held captive and then…then…

Yet there he was, somehow, alive and taking Megatron by surprise, using the brief advantage that surprise gave him to pin Megatron against a console. He was saying something to Megatron, but Swoop in her dazed state couldn't quite make out the words. It didn't matter, though, because Megatron quickly overpowered Thundercracker, and he fell. Practically as he did so, however, a motley jumble of Autobots – and Starscream – burst into the room. Swoop could only stare at them in shock, and in her dazed state she couldn't begin to comprehend how they were there, how they had known where she was…

And then she numbly watched them fall, one by one, the latest being Snarl. He was sprawled, deeply unconscious at least, on the floor not far from her. Soon, all but Starscream were down. Alive, dead, she didn't know. It vaguely occurred to her that perhaps she should see about attending to those who had fallen, but she couldn't move. Nor could she take her eyes off of Megatron and Starscream, squared off against each other and circling like wary vultures. What they were saying to each other was obviously heated and hateful. Their faces were twisted into angry and determined snarls, their voices raised, but their words were as blurred and as unintelligible to Swoop's dulled senses as Thundercracker's had been. She could only watch them as they executed a dance that she might have thought absorbingly graceful if she hadn't known that it was also deadly.

Starscream was losing his battle, however. He was apparently aware of this, had already yelled at Swoop more than twice to just run. But she couldn't move, much less run. It was as if the essence of who she was had become disconnected from her physical form. She wasn't sure if it was an effect of the altered programming, too, or simply some sort of traumatized reaction to what Megatron had done to her.

As her mind wandered off to sluggishly contemplate that question, she watched as Megatron, moving so quickly that he was almost a blur, managed to lift and pin Starscream against the wall like a weak and bleeding butterfly, his hands wrapped with crushing force around Starscream's throat while Starscream kicked ineffectually at him. Starscream was already bleeding copiously from half a dozen grievous injuries that she had noticed as he'd moved, and she knew that, even though he was nigh-impossible to kill, able to shake off with relative ease damage that would destroy anyone else, he wasn't completely invulnerable. She knew that, if anyone could kill him, it would be Megatron and his fusion cannon. She knew that Megatron would drag out Starscream's destruction as long as he could, that he would make Starscream suffer pain and especially humiliation for as long as possible before he finally delivered the killing blow. And she knew they there was no one, now, who could prevent all of that.

Except her.

Swoop was very aware that Starscream's death would end the imprint between them, that death was likely the _only_ thing that could end it. If he died, she would be free of him. If for no other reason than that, she should have welcomed the idea. But she didn't, not at all, and she was in no condition to contemplate exactly why that was so. She knew only that she was angry, an anger that was at first a distant storm on the horizon but that grew exponentially stronger and closer as she continued to watch Megatron toying with Starscream. Eventually, the anger morphed into rage, and the rage quickly became utter, blinding, all-consuming, and near-mindless fury.

The fury fed Swoop like the finest, purest energon. Focus, concentration, and predatory instincts all rose to the surface in response to the fury, overwhelming and battling back the dulling, damping effects of the altered programming. Thus freed, her mind immediately focused and drilled down onto a single, overriding purpose, and the rage that was suffusing her afforded her strength that she would not have had otherwise. She glorified in it even as she struggled to channel it productively.

She recognized her old friend, the animal half of herself. For a good portion of her life, it had been all that she was rather than merely an aspect of herself that she kept tightly swaddled in layer upon layer of practiced and hard-won civility. But it was still a very large part of her, always lurking just under the surface, awaiting the flimsiest of excuses to come out and play. Starscream had gotten a taste of this part of her a number of times now, channeled for far more pleasurable purposes than what she suddenly had in mind for Megatron. Because now, the animalistic side of her was the _only_ part of her core programming thathadn't been corrupted by whatever Soundwave had done to her. He hadn't bothered with the scarier, more "primitive" side of her.

And that side of her wanted blood. It wanted, bizarrely, to protect Starscream at all costs. Most of all, it wanted revenge. It wanted to rip Megatron's spark out of his chest, such that its fading light would be the very last thing that he saw. Megatron, Swoop suddenly decided, was going to pay a spectacularly high price for Soundwave's oversight.

Snarling softly in anticipation, her gaze never leaving the two battling Decepticons, Swoop slithered fluidly back to her hands and knees and crawled over to Snarl's still form. She wrapped a hand around the hilt of his sword, growling softly as she wrestled it from his unconscious but still somehow firm grasp. And then silently, stealthily, she further crawled to a damaged, sparking console that she vaguely recalled being shoved against when Megatron had…

_No, don't think about that,_ she sternly told herself as she crouched down behind the console in order to better stalk her prey; it was the last somewhat rational thought that entered her mind before the animal in her consumed everything that she was.

She took very careful note of Megatron's damage, instinctively pinpointing and cataloging each of his current weaknesses so as to use them to her best advantage. Neither combatant seemed to have noticed her moving about, wholly focused on each other as they were now. Satisfied, Swoop hefted Snarl's sword with a grunt of effort; it was very heavy, not a whole lot shorter than she was tall, and it crackled with pent-up energy along the entire length of its viciously-serrated blade. The weapon was crying out for a victim, and she fully intended to give it one.

Some increasingly distant and faint part of her mind warned her against following through with her intended course of action. It warned her that she might end up dead herself and that her death, since she lacked a successor, would be disastrous for her species…but at the moment, she didn't care in the slightest. That very small and very beleaguered voice, the voice of reason and civility, was quite easy to ignore in her current, feral state.

Growling like the animal that she was, she moved toward her prey carefully, silently, avoiding being seen, and then she launched herself at him, leaping onto his back with an enraged and wordless animal screech. She clung tightly to him with both of her legs and with one arm wrapped securely around his throat, anchoring herself quite nicely. Her free hand still grasped the sword, and before Megatron, who was caught entirely by surprise, could adjust and dislodge her, she rammed the blade mercilessly into his side on an upward trajectory. The strike took advantage of damage that Snarl had already inflicted upon him with the very same weapon that she was now wielding. Megatron's armor was weakened in that area from previous blows, and the blade bit easily through the width of his torso, the point of it emerging underneath his arm. And then, just as brutally, Swoop quickly pulled the blade back out, twisting it so that its wicked serrations would do the most possible damage as she pulled it free of Megatron's body.

It wasn't a fatal blow. She hadn't intended it to be, not yet, for she had no intention of killing him quickly. But it was a very painful and debilitating blow, particularly so on top of the injuries that had already been inflicted upon him. It was enough that Megatron was forced to abruptly abandon his assault on Starscream, who immediately slipped to the floor, coughing and wheezing weakly. Swoop vaguely noted that Starscream was staring at her in wide-eyed shock, as if he didn't recognize the crazed creature that was clinging to his tormentor's back. Dimly, she heard Starscream make a weak sound of protest at what she was doing, but she ignored him, her attention fully, lethally focused on Megatron.

Swoop clung determinedly to Megatron's back as he staggered and crashed to his knees. Once down, grunting in pain and swearing for all he was worth, he tried to reach awkwardly around himself to claw at her, attempting to dislodge her from her precarious perch. But she was small enough and his angle of approach was awkward enough that she could evade his attempts to grab her relatively easily, shimmying away and jerking out of his grasp even when he managed to land a hand on her. At the same time, she managed to raise the sword again, this time to bludgeon the side of his head with its heavy hilt, creating a sizable dent.

Megatron went fully down then, with a ponderous crash, stunned for a critical moment. He twisted as he went down, so that he landed on his back. He'd been hoping to pin Swoop under his much larger and heavier body, but she leaped nimbly away from him as he collapsed and then whirled around as soon as her feet hit the floor, still unerringly wielding the sword. Not giving Megatron any time to recover, Swoop grasped the sword's hilt in both hands, raised it over her head for extra momentum, and then brought the heavy blade slashing down between his shoulder and his right elbow joint. The result was a messily-severed right forearm, on which his fusion canon was mounted.

Showers of sparks flew every which way, and short-circuited electrical discharge crackled up what was left of Megatron's arm and over half of his chest. He roared in pain and outrage and involuntarily waved the stump of his arm around, spattering Swoop and her surroundings with warm energon and other vital fluids, adding to the smears of fluids that were already decorating her, much of it her own. Swoop hardly noticed any of it, consumed as she was with blood lust, with a deep and driving need for vengeance delivered as painfully and as humiliatingly as possible, just as Megatron had humiliated her.

Megatron, meanwhile, was scooting weakly away from Swoop, his movements becoming slowly feebler, but he was still bellowing more loudly than she'd ever heard him bellow. Whether he did so in pain or simply because of the sheer insult of what she'd done to him, she didn't know. Or much care, really. While he was distracted by pain or enraged indignation or both, she sprang toward him, planted a foot on his abdomen for leverage, and then poised the tip of the sword's blade directly and meaningfully against his chest, pushing down on it just hard enough that it bit shallowly into the thick armor plating directly over his spark chamber. Megatron stilled instantly, staring up at her in sheer, wordless disbelief as she grasped the hilt of the sword with both hands, marshaling her strength.

"You were _wrong_, Megatron," she spat at him in a thick and feral voice that she hardly recognized as her own. "What you said. Don't belong to you. _You_ belong to _me_. I will do with you as _I_ choose."

With a grunt of effort, Swoop thrust the sword a bit deeper into Megatron's chest. Energy licked out from the blade almost hungrily in response, as if sensing and longing for its eventual destination. Megatron twitched, an involuntary gasp that was pained and perhaps fearful escaping him, for all that he still glared at her mutinously.

"And I choose," Swoop growled viciously at him, staring into his shocked eyes, "to _end_ this. What goes around, comes around."

And then, putting all of her rage-enhanced strength into it, and before Megatron could have a word in edgewise or offer any kind of resistance, Swoop rammed the blade home. It ripped through the remaining thickness of Megatron's armor, slammed cleanly through his spark chamber, tore through the rest of his body, and then bit deeply into the floor beneath him. He was ignominiously pinned like an insect, and for a long moment, he was utterly silent, surprise perhaps shunting aside pain and forestalling death for a few seconds.

During those few seconds of thick, foreboding silence, Swoop snarled menacingly down at him, "Scream for me, Megatron."

And he did. He screamed. And screamed. And screamed some more. He continued to scream even as his body convulsed violently and helplessly on its macabre skewer, as the sword's energy devoured his spark. It was a horrible death. An excruciating and agonizingly slow death.

It was, in Swoop's estimation, no less than he deserved.

She staggered away from the twitching, bleeding, and still brilliantly sparking body, strength and rage rapidly bleeding from her as surely as Megatron's life was bleeding from him. Thoroughly dazed, she found herself unexpectedly enveloped in Thundercracker's arms; he'd obviously regained his senses. Glancing dully around herself, Swoop realized then that some of her other rescuers had done the same and that a few others had arrived on the scene, as well. Other than Ratchet – who was already crouched down in the midst of the steadily-widening pool of vital fluids that surrounded Starscream, his entire attention focused on his patient – they were all standing around, staring at what Swoop had done and staring at her, too, as she shook helplessly, like a terrified child, in Thundercracker's arms.

She clung to Thundercracker gratefully and buried her face in his chest as every inch of her continued to shake. Thundercracker held her, crooned soft, soothing words at her, but she didn't understand what he was saying. Now that the focusing rage had been spent, she was floating again, her mind connected to her body by the thinnest of threads, and she decided that it didn't matter what Thundercracker was saying. She just continued to cling to him, listening to the soothing rhythm and the rich, deep rumble of his voice, absorbing it, concentrating on it, using it to anchor herself in reality, although that was a losing battle.

But before she fully disengaged from reality, Swoop heard Starscream's voice from off in the corner, where Ratchet was tending to him. His voice was hitching in pain as he said to Ratchet, "Remind me…never…to make her…too angry at me."

Ratchet's voice fervently murmuring, "You and me both," was the last thing Swoop heard before everything around her dimmed to fuzzy shades of grey.

* * *

_Yeah, yeah. Nightwind's really not into writing non-con, I'm afraid. I did attempt it…but it just felt gratuitous and completely unnecessary and made this chapter far, **far **too long. Because really, what happens afterward is the much more important thing…for now, anyway. So, we just…skip right to the aftermath. Yeah, that's it._

_But…God, I love killing Megatron. Heh heh heh… Then again, he and Optimus Prime do have one (annoying) thing in common, don't they? That would be that they don't often stay dead for long. As to whether or not Megatron'll stay dead here…Well, time will tell, won't it? ;)_

_**Next time:**__ You know what they say, right? For every action, there is a reaction._


	21. 19: Repercussions

_**19: Repercussions**_

Ratchet stormed into the conference room, where the room's current occupants were in deep but quiet discussion, trying to figure out what to do in the wake of recent dramatic but very unexpected events. Glancing around himself, Ratchet saw that everyone that he needed to address – even Starscream, busily trying and failing to be inconspicuous, alone in a corner – was already, conveniently, in the room.

"Oh, good," Ratchet announced sourly when the room went suddenly quiet and all eyes turned to him curiously. "The gang's all here."

And then he summarily dismissed everyone who didn't yet need to know the information that he was going to divulge. All of them, seeing the thundering look on Ratchet's face, left without a murmur of protest, leaving only Optimus Prime, Mirage, Thundercracker, Starscream, and Ratchet in the room. Once the last of the extraneous individuals had departed, Ratchet turned back to Optimus Prime.

Optimus judged the look on Ratchet's face to be off-putting. Very off-putting. He had learned over the years to interpret even the subtlest nuances of the medic's expressions, and he knew well the difference between his habitual but harmless grumpiness, his often-feigned anger, and his very rare bouts of genuine fury. It was blazingly obvious to Prime that Ratchet was genuinely furious now, perhaps more angry than he had ever seen him. He was holding his fury carefully in check for the moment – barely – but Optimus knew that he would have to tread very, very carefully or otherwise risk setting him off.

"How is Swoop?" Optimus asked quietly and then watched as Ratchet's jaw clenched more tightly than it had been, even though he wouldn't have thought that physically possible. Optimus flinched inwardly. It was bad news about Swoop, then, which explained the fury; Ratchet was ridiculously protective of her. He always had been, from the moment of her "birth," and now her status only gave him extra impetus for protective zeal. So, a feeling of utter dread settled over Prime.

"Is she—?" Thundercracker ventured hesitantly before Prime could say anything.

"Wheeljack finished purging the altered programming from her systems and restored the original," Ratchet icily interrupted the Seeker, grinding out the words from around his clenched jaw.

Even if he hadn't been enraged, Ratchet still didn't know what to make of Thundercracker and his relationship to Swoop. He still couldn't quite believe that such a relationship existed, even though he himself had been the one who had confirmed it. Accepting the information would take time, and perhaps a lot of it.

"There doesn't appear to be any permanent damage," Ratchet added, "She'll be…fine."

Optimus, although relieved, squinted at Ratchet then, perplexed. It wasn't the answer that he had expected, given Ratchet's emotional state. The pause in his words was telling, decidedly pained,and his voice was deeply roughened. There was strong emotion there, and it was something other than rage.

"Then why—?" Prime started to ask, but Ratchet was already whirling away, zeroing in like a guided missile on Starscream, who appeared first startled at the sudden focused attention and then more than a little intimidated in the face of the medic's obvious fury.

"How long can you go without her before you have to be locked up somewhere?" Ratchet asked brutally of Starscream, point-blank.

Starscream's mouth opened, but no sound came out, even after several attempts. Embarrassed anger crept into his processors, but the look on Ratchet's face held it in check. Starscream hadn't been amongst the Autobots long and wasn't at all sure of what he was going to do with the rest of his life now, but he already knew well not to irritate Ratchet, especially if he was already angry and particularly if his anger was stemming from something having to do with Swoop.

"It…It hasn't been an…an issue long enough," Starscream stammered uncertainly, "for me to know for su—"

"How. Long?" Ratchet pointedly interrupted, taking a few meaningful and menacing steps toward the Seeker. His voice was dangerously low, demanding, and it brooked no argument.

Starscream suppressed the urge to shrink back against the wall behind him in the face of Ratchet's simmering fury.

"Six or eight weeks, maybe," he said quietly, with an uncertain shrug, swallowing his own anger almost painfully. "But…preferably not that long."

"Then you," Ratchet snarled with a terrifying scowl, "might have a _very_ serious problem on your hands."

Starscream opened his mouth to reply, but Mirage, behind the two of them, suddenly spoke over him, his voice raised demandingly. He had been sitting at the conference table, but he had risen from his seat and was glaring prodigiously at the medic's back, his arms folded over his chest, his posture both regal and stiff.

"_Enough_, Ratchet!" he commanded in quiet but deeply imperious tones, the kind that had been emanating from him more often of late, ever since the revelation of Swoop's status. "Leave him alone, and tell us what's wrong."

Ratchet spun on Mirage, eyes flaring angrily. When Mirage didn't back down in the slightest, when he in fact took a few determined steps toward the enraged medic, Ratchet thrust a datapad at him, the one that he'd been clutching in one hand.

"_This_ is wrong!" Ratchet growled. "This is the most wrong thing _ever_ in the history of the universe!"

Mirage took the pad from Ratchet, frowning…and then he realized just what the image on the pad's small screen was.

"Primus!" Mirage responded, awestruck, almost dropping the device in shock. "Is…is that what I think it is?"

Mirage looked up then to meet Ratchet's gaze. Some of the more intense anger seemed to have bled from the medic, replaced with worry and a distinct and, for Ratchet, very rare helplessness.

"If you think that it's a developing protoform," Ratchet answered bitterly, "then yes, it is."

"What?" Starscream responded, shocked, while Mirage gaped at the medic. He stomped over to Mirage, peering over his shoulder intently. He squinted at the image on the screen for a long moment, then raised his gaze to lock it with Ratchet's. "I swear to you, Ratchet," he assured the medic fervently, "we've never—"

"I know," Ratchet assured Starscream, waving at him dismissively. Then a haunted air settled over him as he added, "But apparently she and Megatron did. That altered programming makes all _kinds_ of sense now. It put her into cycle again. Only they…_he_…" He couldn't finish the sentence, could only gesture weakly at the datapad that Mirage still held.

Unexpected rage flooded Starscream. He didn't bother trying to understand why the emotion was there; he just let himself feel it. He did succeed in shoving away his first impulse – to shoot something or someone – so as not to end up in the Autobots' brig for the rest of his possibly immortal life, but otherwise he let the rage burn its way through him. And then, numbly, he sat himself in the chair next to the one that Mirage, similarly bewildered, had just claimed. He tried, and largely failed, to assimilate Ratchet's revelation, and he hardly noticed when Thundercracker settled himself in the seat on his other side, not until his wingmate spoke up.

"I want to resurrect him," Thundercracker suddenly announced with quiet and surreal calm, "so that I can kill him again."

"Get in line," Ratchet ferociously snarled at him. "Behind Wheeljack and then me and then the other Dinobots."

Angry and bewildered silence settled over the room, broken only when Optimus asked quietly from the head of the table, "How is she taking the news?"

In response, Ratchet finally collapsed into a chair, too, across the table from where Mirage was sitting.

"She doesn't know yet," he answered bleakly, suddenly exhausted. He slumped down into his chair and stared at the ceiling as he listlessly added, "We had to take her offline so that Wheeljack could get her sorted out. Afterward, after she stabilized, First Aid was running a routine scan and…and found…"

His voice trailed off in distress and a long moment passed while he collected himself. Sympathetically, silently, Optimus reached over and laid a hand on the medic's forearm, giving it a comforting squeeze.

Ratchet gave him a surprised but grateful look, and added, "The poor kid was afraid to tell me what he'd found for a few hours, but when he did finally tell me and then showed me _that_…" he said, waving at the datapad that was still clutched in Mirage's hand. Sighing, he finished, "I haven't brought her back online yet. I need time to deal with it myself before…before I have to tell her."

Mirage just stared at the datapad in his hand, entirely tuning out whatever else was said after that. He knew that Ratchet would have to tell Swoop nothing, that if she didn't already know that she carried a child, she would be aware of it the moment that she awoke. It was simply the way that it was, with queens like his mother. And his sister. They just…knew.

Mirage could only hope that, for Swoop, the knowledge would not be devastating. She had dealt with a brutal barrage of sudden changes in her life over the past several months, and she had done so with occasional wry humor and with _far_ more grace than Mirage would ever have given her credit for. The fact that he wouldn't have thought her capable of doing so shamed him deeply. He had always looked down upon her simply because she was a Dinobot, because Dinobots were – _had to be – _lesser beings. Or so Mirage had always thought…and he'd always been wrong. Now, he could only hope that Swoop could bear just one more thing, this one _huge_ thing, without completely shattering under the strain.

* * *

_**Next time: **__In the penultimate – and longest – chapter of the story, Swoop waxes philosophical. Starscream's bouncing around all over the map. …And some decisions need to be made._


	22. 20: Responsibilities

_**20: Responsibilities**_

Swoop stared at the wall across from her, deep in thought.

She was lying on her own berth in her own little sunny corner of the Dinobots' shared quarters, enjoying the quiet and the mellow wash of warm afternoon sunlight that flooded the room and, most of all, the solitude. She was curled up on one side, one wing carefully folded down and back to allow the position. She'd drawn her knees up into her midsection because she'd long ago discovered that it was comfortable to do so. Humans called the position the "fetal position" because it was the position that their unborn children naturally assumed inside their mother's wombs as they developed, waiting to be born.

Swoop wondered, idly, what her unborn child looked like now and what he would look like when he was born. She wondered what he was doing, if he was capable of doing anything at all at this very early stage in the process of his formation. It had only been a little over two weeks.

It was, Swoop reflected, the strangest sensation, the strangest _knowledge_. It was nothing like simply carrying offspring sparks. It was so much…deeper. More profound. More personal. She had been aware of the presence of those sparks when she had carried them, yes. They had been a part of her, were still a part of her and always would be, but she hadn't been able to _feel_ them. Hadn't been able to _know_ them. But she could feel the other life within her now as surely as she could feel the pulsing of her own spark.

She knew that the life inside of her was male, although she was at a loss to explain _how_ she knew that. She'd been quite relieved when Mirage had told her, during one of his frequent visits in the week that Ratchet had kept her confined and under close watch in the medbay, that their mother had always instinctively known the gender of the children that she had carried, too, although she didn't often announce it to anyone. So at least Swoop knew that the knowing was normal. She also knew that, eventually, she would know this life inside of her as well, well before he was born. Even now, even though he was only sixteen days old, she could sense that he had fledgling…not thoughts or feelings, really, not yet, but she knew that he could already perceive things. She knew that he was aware of her, and that the awareness was growing, almost by the minute, just as her awareness of him was growing. And for now, that was enough. They had a little less than five Earth months to get to know one another beyond that, before he'd be born into the world and would no longer be hers alone.

She did not resent his presence, not in the slightest. She welcomed him, in fact, with all that she was. She loved him. Already. Intensely. Protectively. _Immediately_. The others, they didn't understand. No one, really, understood. No one could, and Swoop couldn't really blame them. Perhaps another female might have had _some_ inkling of what she was feeling, but there were no other females on Earth at the moment. But then, even if there had been other females present, they only had the capability to create bodies, vessels for lives but not the lives themselves. That gift was Swoop's alone amongst her species, and a gift it most certainly was.

She recalled what she'd said to Wheeljack not so very long ago at all, the words that she had spoken in despair about hating what she had become, about it being humiliating and degrading, and she couldn't believe now what she'd said. And really, she didn't know what had changed since then, either. There had been no epiphany, no sudden flood of angelic light and a heavenly chorus that conveyed some great truth to her, no single dramatic event that had completely altered her perception of the universe and her place in it. There was absolutely nothing different about her now except the presence of another life within her. And in the end, maybe that had been all that was required to compel her to acknowledge the enormous gift that she had been given, and, more importantly, to compel her to _appreciate_ the gift.

Whatever the case, those who surrounded her couldn't understand why she had absolutely no desire to destroy the life that was growing inside of her, that was already sharing and draining her resources and that would soon begin to co-opt internal parts of her body in order to create his own. He had been fathered by their greatest enemy. She had lost track of the number of individuals who had told her over the past few days, in an attempt to make her "see reason," that he had humiliated her, brutalized her, traumatized her in the worst possible way in order to bring about the life that she now harbored within her, as if merely doing so could make her hate that life. But no. She could hate Megatron, but she could not hate an innocent life and, really, she couldn't understand why no one could see things _her_ way, why _they_ couldn't see reason. But they couldn't, and that was sad. For them.

Part of the explanation for Swoop's equanimity regarding the situation was very simple: For her, the life growing inside of her was not a reminder of physical and psychological trauma, of brutality, of…rape. She had absolutely no memory of what had happened to her. Her recent memories ended abruptly in a small, frigid room in an abandoned Decepticon base in the Gobi Desert and only began again in the warmth of the Autobots' medbay, with an angry and anguished Ratchet telling her what she had already, instinctively, known the instant that she had regained consciousness: That she carried Megatron's child. Ratchet had further told her that Megatron had altered her programming in such a way that was designed to put her into cycle and to make her more…receptive. That he had subsequently raped her. That shortly afterwards she had killed him in an uncontrollable and frightening-to-witness flood of fury brought on, so she had apparently said at the time, by a combination of things, but mostly because, of all things, she hadn't wanted Megatron to kill Starscream.

But when the altered programming had been removed, so, too, had all recollection of the events that had transpired while she had been under its sway. The result was a yawning void in Swoop's mind, a loss of almost a week, including the act that had brought about the life that she harbored now. But this did not greatly trouble her. She was thankful for it, in fact, if it helped her to accept, to love, to _cherish_ the life that she bore now.

Her son. Megatron's son.

Because even if Swoop had perfect recall of the events surrounding her son's conception and even if the events truly had been traumatic and horrifying…she would not have destroyed her child, and this was what no one could understand. She was hard-pressed to understand it, herself, but she had come to the conclusion that it was because of her role in Cybertronian society and, really, her role in the universe as a whole.

Swoop had been born, the second time around, to be a life-taker. She had been intended and uniquely designed to damage, to maim, to kill, to cause nothing but havoc and pain and suffering. And even though she was killing and inflicting pain upon those whom she was told were her enemies, doing so had never sat well with her, on a deeply-felt instinctive level that she understood perfectly well _now_ but that had made no sense to her at all for most of her life. At the time, the feeling, the deeply-held _knowledge, _that something was very wrong, that something was wildly out of place, was simply the driving force behind her eventual desire to be a medic. Swoop had remolded herself in that manner because she had felt, very deep down, that she _had to _do so. She had felt that the role that she had been given in life was wrong, not just wrong for her, individually, but wrong in a cosmic and general kind of way. So the life-taker became more often a life-protector, an individual who thwarted the life-takers when she could, when it was possible to do so, and it was deeply satisfying.

And now she knew why. Because her true destiny was to be what she truly was: A life-giver. A life-creator. A sustainer of yet-to-be-born life. Her mother had known this somehow, insisting that she, the little infant Eclipse-who-became-Swoop, would be her successor. And she had been right, and it wasn't, Swoop knew now, only because of the circumstances as they had eventually played out, leaving her the only surviving female in the family. No, Swoop knew now that she would have arisen as queen even if her mother had died peacefully of advanced age, even if she had been loved by all until the very moment that simple entropy claimed her life. She knew, deep down, that she had simply been chosen, although again she did not understand _how_ she knew this.

Her lack of understanding was irrelevant, however; that she knew was sufficient, and she found that, now, she could not only accept but truly _embrace_ what she had become. And part of that meant that she could not, _would not_, take life. She would wound if she was forced to do so, in order to deter those who would take life, but she would not kill. Not anymore and never again. The fact that she had apparently killed Megatron – deliberately, slowly, _cruelly,_ taking malicious advantage of the fact that he'd already been greatly weakened by the combined efforts of others – disturbed her far more than the objective knowledge that he had impregnated her against her will, far more than the notion of carrying and raising and _loving_ his child did. She knew that she could blame the effects of the altered programming for the killing, of course – and indeed it was ultimately to blame, for she hadn't been in complete control of her actions – but that didn't at all mitigate the abhorrence she felt toward what she had done, toward what she was obviously capable of doing. She was, in fact, ashamed of herself.

This, too, no one could understand. Others looked at her with awe that sometimes, disturbingly, bordered on something like worship, all because of whom she had killed. That was distressing. In Swoop's estimation, no one should be revered for killing, no matter whom they killed, no matter how horrible that individual was. No one.

And then Swoop sighed as a soft noise interrupted her philosophical musings. It was the door of her room sliding aside, and she was instantly annoyed; she'd told her brothers that she wanted to be alone. But as it turned out it wasn't one of her brothers who was visiting her.

Starscream poked his head into her room, unflinchingly met the irritated glare that she angled at him, and said, "Hello?"

Swoop sighed again, but she found that she couldn't be annoyed with him, not with Starscream, not really. And she had no idea why.

"Hello," she answered quietly, at the same time gesturing that he could come in.

He did so wordlessly, approaching her and silently offering her one of the containers that she just then noticed that he was carrying. Swoop pushed herself up into a sitting position in order to accept it, and she saw that it contained energon, concentrated and high-quality energon. She smiled appreciatively up at Starscream. Her body's energon demand had already greatly increased, and she had been feeling a little peckish, not enough so that she had gotten up to do something about it yet, but enough that she had been thinking about it. Somehow, it didn't surprise her in the least that Starscream had anticipated that and had arrived prepared.

"I guess you'll do just about anything to stay on the good stuff," Starscream said to her, watching as she sipped appreciatively. His tone was light, but even so the words cut into Swoop like a laser scalpel, and the smile fell abruptly from her face.

"So you think I'm crazy, too," she said resignedly, slumping back against the wall behind her with a defeated sigh.

"No," Starscream immediately, reflexively responded. "Well, yes," he amended after a moment's thought. Then, looking around the room, he spied the one chair that was in the small room. It was too small for him, but he wedged himself into it anyway, thinking it a better option than sitting on the floor because he wasn't at all sure that he'd be welcomed on Swoop's berth, even just to sit on it. "But I don't think that you're any crazier than any of the rest of us," he finished.

Swoop regarded him, askance, but didn't say anything. Starscream sighed and slumped back in the too-small chair, giving Swoop a nebulous look that she didn't know quite how to interpret.

"Look…Swoop…" Starscream offered hesitantly after gathering his thoughts for a moment. "I really, _truly_ don't understand why in the universe you want this child, _his_ child, not after what he…after _everything_. I don't think _anyone_ can understand it, really. In fact, if someone _did_ claim to understand it, I would question their sanity."

Swoop nodded silently; he wasn't telling her anything that she didn't already know. But then, rather unexpectedly, he continued.

"But what I _do_ understand," Starscream said quietly, "is that it's important to _you_ that you keep this child for…whatever reason." He shrugged carelessly as he added, "And that's good enough for me."

Swoop gawked at Starscream for a long, long time after that, emotions suddenly roiling within her, surfacing and sinking in such rapid succession that she couldn't identify any individual one before it slipped off into the depths again. But once she could talk again, she choked out, her voice wavering gratefully but pitifully, "Well. Just when I think I've got you all figured out, jetboy, you throw me a curve ball."

Starscream gave her a lop-sided smile.

"If you'll recall," he said quietly, "I _did_ once warn you that I was capable of many things that might surprise you. I wasn't lying, you know."

Swoop smiled at him, trying and failing to prevent the smile from having a good measure of sap in it. To deflect the sap, she teased, "And to think that just three months ago I would've given half my spark to rip your head off and shove it up your—"

Starscream laughed out loud, interrupting her, and he raised his container of energon in salute to her, declaring, "And the sentiment was _entirely_ mutual, my dear, I assure you."

Laughing, too, leaning over to reach out across the short distance between them, Swoop clinked her container of energon gently against his.

"To not getting what we wanted," she said, suddenly very serious.

"I'll drink to that," he answered, in the same tone. And so he did, downing what energon he had left. Swoop did the same. Then:

"Now get out of my favorite chair before you break it," she ordered him indignantly. Patting the spot next to her in invitation, she added, "Berth's big enough for two, but don't you go getting any bright ideas."

"Me?" Starscream responded, all exaggerated innocence, as he extricated himself from the too-small chair. "Bright ideas? You give me _far_ too much credit, my queen."

Swoop snorted at that.

"Speaking of credit," she said as Starscream settled himself next to her, "how'd you get past my phalanx of faithful guardians out there, anyway?" She scooted out of the way of Starscream's wing as he leaned back against the wall, and then she sat back against it once he'd settled himself alongside her, so that they were shoulder to shoulder, her own wing still neatly folded out of the way.

"Oh, that," Starscream said dismissively. He shrugged and answered, "Snarl owed me a bit of a favor."

Swoop snorted at that again. It figured. Starscream seemed to have an uncanny ability to worm his way into other people's good graces, even when those other people didn't exactly like him. She'd have to ask him how he managed that feat one day. If they had more days…

"So…What will you do now?" Swoop asked quietly, seriously, of Starscream.

Thundercracker had made his future plans eminently clear to her during her stay in the medbay: Now that he had found her, he wasn't about to abandon her, certainly not in her current condition, no matter what the Autobots had to say about it. But she wasn't at all sure about what Starscream might have planned, if he had any plans at all. And Starscream shrugged in answer to her question. He was going for a casually nonchalant shrug, Swoop could tell, but she could feel the sudden tension in his body.

"I haven't the faintest clue," Starscream answered her quietly, honestly, and with a drawn-out sigh. "And isn't that strange? I always thought that once Megatron was dead, my path would be brilliantly clear." He made a resigned gesture in the air, miming a wide, straight, unobstructed path.

"Except," Swoop pointed out, nodding sympathetically, "that in your daydreams, it was always you who killed him. And if _that_ had been the case…"

"…Then my path _would_ be clear," Starscream finished. He heaved a weary, regretful sigh, and then paraphrased, "The best laid plans are often completely obliterated by a crazed Dinobot." Swoop snickered sadly as Starscream continued quietly, "I suppose my only consolation is that the utterly brainless one amongst my wingmates is every bit as clueless as I am. So after all is said and done, I find myself exactly like Skywarp. It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic."

"You've been in contact with Skywarp?" Swoop asked, surprised.

Starscream nodded.

"He finally lowered himself to talk to me not twenty minutes ago. Mostly, I think, because he's worried about Thundercracker because Thundercracker hasn't spoken to him, not since he left Headquarters to meet with you." He sighed and then added reluctantly, "And Skywarp told me that things are…not fun…at Decepticon Headquarters. I made a mess when I left, and then, not too long after that…Well, you know."

"Mmmm," Swoop unhappily murmured.

Starscream was quiet for a time, but then he confessed, in an uncharacteristically pained voice, "It's chaos over there, Swoop. Soundwave can't keep things under control even if he wanted to, and he's made it very clear that he _doesn't_ want to. I wouldn't have expected that of him. I really thought he'd just…take over. But instead he's holed himself up with his 'kids' in his quarters and…and it's total anarchy. Skywarp's technically next in line, but he's completely out of his league. So…They won't survive, not for long. They'll pick each other off one by one because fighting and killing is what they do, and right now they have no one to fight or kill but each other."

Starscream was quiet for a long while after that, thinking, and Swoop was content to let him think. But then he sighed and added, "And here I sit, in a comparative lap of luxury, drinking excellent energon with a beautiful female." When Swoop jerked reflexively next to him and turned her head to stare at him in wide-eyed shock, he smiled and teased sadly, "Oh, come now. No false modesty, my dear. Sludge_ is_ an artist, indeed."

Swoop only continued to gawk at him in return. Impulsively, amused by the thunderstruck expression that remained on her face, Starscream leaned toward her and kissed her chastely on the forehead. But then he pulled away from her, waxing melancholy and silent again, staring at the wall across from him.

Swoop sighed. She could almost feel the opposing impulses that were tearing at Starscream, the desire to stay far away from the chaos and the concurrent but opposite desire to try to bring order to it. She knew now the reason for his unexpected visit, and she was glad that she hadn't refused him. She reached over then, took one of his hands in one of hers, and squeezed it encouragingly. Surprised, he turned his head to look at her.

Before he could say anything, she said quietly, simply, levelly, her gaze not straying from his, "They need you. You should go back to them."

Starscream shook his head.

"No," he said sadly. "No, they don't need me. No, I was thinking more along the lines of having a chat with Optimus Prime and convincing him that he needs to go over there and put them all out of their misery because that's what's best done with broken animals. Ones that you can't fix."

"No," Swoop insisted vehemently, immediately. "No more killing. There's already been far, _far_ too much of it."

Starscream was startled by her sudden vehemence. The look that he gave her said as much.

"You really mean that," he said wonderingly after he'd studied her face for a moment, noting the determined lines into which it had set. It wasn't a question.

"Yes, I do," Swoop answered firmly anyway. "I've given this, _all_ of this, a lot of thought over the past few days." Letting go of Starscream's hand, she laid both hands on herself, one on top of the other, below and slightly to the left of her spark chamber, directly over her developing son, and explained, "I'm life, Starscream. A force for life. A creator of life. And life shouldn't, _can't_, sanction killing."

Starscream blinked, and in the space of that blink something that had made absolutely no sense to him before began to make perfect sense, which was always disconcerting.

"And that's why you won't terminate this," he said, laying a hand over her two. "That's why you wouldn't terminate it even if you could remember what happened." Again, it wasn't a question.

"Yes," Swoop answered quietly again, nodding solemnly. "Exactly."

Starscream looked at her with grudging respect, and he said, almost unwillingly, "I understand."

Swoop smiled at him then, gratefully but teasingly, and answered, "Well, then. You'd better skip off and go have your sanity checked."

Starscream smiled in kind.

"I suppose so," he agreed quietly.

Companionable silence settled between them for a few long moments, both of them contemplating the future. Eventually, Swoop felt the tension begin to return to Starscream's body, and she sighed, reluctant to say to him what she needed to say to him, to ask of him what she knew, now, that she needed to ask of him.

"Starscream?" she ventured hesitantly, quietly.

"Hmm?" he murmured distractedly.

"I need you to go back to them," Swoop said quietly after only a brief moment of hesitation. She gazed earnestly up at him while he turned his head to frown quizzically down at her.

"_You_ need me to?" he asked, surprised and bewildered. "Why?"

"Because if I'm 'she who will restore' the royal line," she said, gesturing at the glyphs on her forearm, "then I need someone to be 'he who picks up the pieces of what's left of the warrior caste and welds them kicking and screaming back together again.'" At Starscream's completely dubious look, she added, "I need them, Starscream. Or at least I will need what they're _supposed_ to be doing. And I need _you_ to pull them together."

Starscream snorted dismissively at that. He even got up off the berth…and then just stood there, indecisively.

"You have plenty of warriors here who could do that," he eventually pointed out to Swoop, staring down at her. "You even have _Prowl,_ the ultra-super-finest-example-of-honorable-warriorness-who-ever-deigned-to-grace-us-with-his-shining-and-glorious-presence here. You don't need _me_."

Swoop sighed exasperatedly.

"_Think_ about it, Starscream," she said imploringly. "Those warriors over there are what? Maybe half of those who still exist? And they're Decepticons and have been for thousands of years now. Do you seriously think that they're going to listen to _Prowl_? Or to _any_ warrior who ended up siding with the Autobots?"

"Do you seriously think that they're going to listen to _me_?" Starscream immediately, unthinkingly countered, his eyes flashing with sudden anger.

Swoop got up off the berth then, too, her own eyes narrowed in annoyance. She paced toward him, stopping just out of arm's reach, but her gaze burned up and into his.

"You certainly used to think that they would," Swoop reminded him quietly, her calm tone counterpointing his angry one. She folded her arms over her chest and raised her chin at him challengingly. "So were you just deluding yourself all along, then?"

Starscream stiffened.

"That was a low blow," he accused a moment later, stabbing a finger at her to emphasize the point.

"I'm a Dinobot," Swoop answered equably, with a dismissive shrug. "I don't fight fair. And you have a responsibility here, Starscream, much as you might not like it," she added quietly. Starscream merely stared at her, frowning at her in confusion, so she explained, "Before the uprising, Megatron was War Leader, and you were his Second. Megatron is…gone. By my reckoning, that makes _you, _not Prowl, War Leader now. Whether you want to be or not. Just as I am queen, whether I want to be or not."

Starscream stared at her, thinking, for a while longer, and then his shoulders slumped, and he turned away from her. He was quiet for a long while after that, but then he said, his voice barely above a whisper, "You don't want to trust me with this, Swoop. I _will_ make a mess of things, and that will be nothing short of disastrous for you. Do yourself a favor: Forget about me, and ask Prowl. He's far more…worthy."

The sheer honesty of his words surprised Swoop. She went to him, standing a pace behind him for a long and indecisive moment, uncertain of what to do. Finally, she let instinct guide her, and she reached out a hand to stroke it back and forth across the width of one of Starscream's wings, offering comfort. He stiffened at first, but he eventually relaxed under her soothing touch.

Swoop lightly traced around the Decepticon sigil on the back of his wing, wishing that she could see his face as she eventually said softly but with rock-solid certainty, "You will _not_ make a mess of things, Starscream. And I need _you, _not Prowl."

"Sure you need me," Starscream retorted with a bitter snort. "Every six weeks or so."

"This has nothing to do with that!" Swoop flared, and Starscream whirled to face her.

"No?" he asked, reaching out to grip her shoulders tightly enough to cause a twinge of pain, but she didn't complain about it and made no effort to break his grip.

"No," she confirmed calmly, staring up at him steadily. Slowly, his grip on her shoulders relaxed, but he didn't let her go. "And least…not beyond the fact that…_that_…has forged this relationship between us," Swoop added softly. And then she sighed and explained quietly but very seriously, "If I'm to do this, Starscream, I need friends."

"You certainly do not lack for friends, Swoop," Starscream countered with a disbelieving snort, releasing her shoulders so that he could cross his arms over his chest.

"Yes, I do," Swoop answered honestly. "Siblings and parents are not the same things as friends. And now, it will be even harder to have friends, especially ones who aren't afraid to tell me what I _need_ to hear instead of what I _want_ to hear. But you will, and I need that. And I need you to bring the warriors together for me. And then I'll need you to _hold_ them together for me."

Starscream opened his mouth to protest, but Swoop continued on, heedless.

"Prowl can't do it," she told him. "He hasn't the people skills for it, and _even if_ he had," she continued, raising her voice a bit because Starscream had opened his mouth to protest again, "the Decepticons won't listen to him. You _know_ that. To them, he is a traitor, and he's always been a particularly sought-after target because of it. That's not going to change anytime soon. And there's no one else with the experience that you have, besides Thundercracker, and he's…he's…"

"…Complicated?" Starscream supplied when her voice trailed off helplessly. "Not to mention a surprisingly good liar," he added ruefully. At the odd and possibly reproving look that Swoop gave him, he sighed and wearily amended, "Oh, don't look at me like that. I may be kicking myself for not figuring it all out a long time ago, but…I might have done exactly the same thing, in his place. It's not as if I can fault him for doing whatever he had to do in order to protect his…daughter." He grimaced during the lengthy pause before the final word he'd said.

"It's weird to me, too," Swoop said quietly, sympathetically, immediately understanding the reason for the grimace.

Starscream snorted.

"I think," he said, only half joking, "that there are at least five regulations against doing what I've done – quite a few times now! – with my wingmate's daughter."

Swoop hitched a halfhearted smile at him.

"The brig's that way," she said, pointing backwards over her shoulder.

"But I think it only fair that my accomplice should be locked up with me," Starscream answered, smiling halfheartedly, too.

Swoop sighed and, turning away from him, she settled herself uneasily on the edge of her berth again.

"To be honest," she said, almost to herself, staring at the floor, "locking myself away from the world is a very…tempting prospect at the moment, and the brig's as good a place as any to do it."

Starscream watched her for a moment, frowning, and then he moved to crouch down in front of her, concerned.

"You can't do that," he said to her quietly, simply, seriously.

"I _know_ that," she answered, equally quietly and equally seriously. And then she lifted her gaze to lock it with Starscream's and said, "I also know that I can't do all of this by myself, Starscream."

"No one expects you to," he answered evenly. "You have _plenty_ of help here. Disparate brothers. Comrades. Prowl and all his…Prowlness. Optimus Prime and his millennia of experience holding a ragtag group of individuals together as a…competent-enough fighting force. Plus, lest you forget, _far_ too many fathers."

"But I need _you_," Swoop insisted. "I need your support."

"Why mine?" Starscream asked, frowning at her, genuinely baffled.

"Because I _want_ it!" Swoop answered before she really thought about it, and it was only then that she realized that it was the stripped-down truth and, further, that it was the truth that had been driving her. Starscream blinked at her in surprise and, partly to smooth over her completely irrational and entirely emotional outburst, Swoop hastily added, "And because…if only because you have a connection with the Decepticons that no one here has, I think that you can help me to do some of the things that I can't do, even with the help of everyone here."

"Such as?" Starscream prompted curiously.

"Such as reconciling the warriors, as I said. And healing the Autobot/Decepticon rift. And attempting to resurrect some kind of functioning government. And – oh, yeah! – dealing with a certain uncle of mine who seems to be under the impression that he owns Cybertron now. And then facing…whatever else comes our way. I can't do all of that on top of birthing and caring for and raising this child and somehow, _somewhere_ squeezing in producing three or four possible successors, just to be safe. Please," she finished imploringly, reaching out to Starscream and laying a hand on his canopy, directly over his spark. She let every last bit of the vulnerability and confusion and fear that she felt – and there was a lot of it – show on her face as she finished, _"_Please help me."

Starscream stared at her for a long time after that, surprised by the naked emotion that she was suddenly willing to reveal to him – a first – yet not knowing quite what to do with it at the same time, precisely _because_ she'd never been so willing to show this side of herself before. She always seemed to be hiding behind a frivolous, witty mask, and because of that Starscream was suddenly discovering that he didn't know quite what to do with an honest and suddenly vulnerable Swoop. Wit he could handle and return in kind and in spades, but emotional honesty…not so much.

So he said, quietly, "You could command me to do this, you know. If you did, I'd be…compelled to obey you."

Swoop shook her head slowly, leaving her hand lying over his spark. Even through the various thick layers of armor that protected it, she could feel its rhythm, still and probably forever matched to her own. Its steadiness was reassuring.

"Somehow I doubt that," she said quietly, smiling at him wryly. "But even if it was true…I won't do that. I'm not going down the coercion road because I know what it eventually did to my mother. Do this – or not – because it's what _you_ want, Starscream."

Starscream sighed wearily. He rose from his crouch in front of her and paced away, pausing shortly to stare at the wall, lost in thought. A long moment later he whispered, "Fine." And then he turned to Swoop and added, in a tone of voice that spoke of layers of meaning behind the words that he uttered, "I'll do what you want me to do. For _you_. _Only_ for you."

The brilliant smile that Swoop gave him in response was reward enough. But then she was standing up, too, approaching him…and the _kiss_ that she impulsively gave him once she'd reached him and wrapped herself around him…

"You know," Starscream said dazedly and more than a little breathlessly when the kiss ended what seemed to him to be hours later, "you could have just done that and dispensed with all the talking."

Swoop's response was to duck her head shyly. Since Starscream still had his arms wrapped loosely around her after the kiss, she hid her face by nuzzling her forehead against his chest. The gesture was, Starscream thought, one of her more endearing quirks. It was childlike and a very strong reminder of how very young she was. He sometimes forgot that she was, in all the ways that mattered, only twenty-four years old, mere months into what was an extremely early maturity by their species' standards and that had likely been brought on by biological necessity, by the fact that her mother was long dead and their population dangerously low. She was, in the end, a child thrust unexpectedly and entirely unprepared into a very demanding position.

"Thank you," she was saying quietly, her voice further muffled against his chest.

Starscream sighed and said, "Forgive me, Swoop, but I'm not entirely certain that you're welcome yet. What you're asking of me… It's not going to be easy. At all."

"I know," Swoop answered solemnly as she raised her face again to meet his gaze. And then she poked his chest with one finger and added, with a suddenly saccharine and teasing grin, "But I believe in you!"

"Oh, please," Starscream groaned, and Swoop snickered.

"No, seriously," Swoop said, her tone of voice indeed serious again. "I wouldn't ask you to do it alone. We'll talk to Optimus Prime about it. I'm certain that he and his 'ragtag group of individuals' will do what they can to help."

"Because you'll sweet-talk him," Starscream surmised, smiling down at her.

"That's the fun part of being the queen," she informed him, smiling sadly back up at him. "Well, that and the really good energon," she amended.

Starscream chuckled, and then a thought that brought him up short occurred to him.

"Wait, was _I_ just sweet-talked?"

Swoop thought seriously about that for a moment, biting her lower lip, her brow furrowing delicately, but then she shook her head soberly.

"No," she said in complete earnest. "No, I think that you and I are a bit beyond sweet-talking now. We need truth between us, Starscream, and I gave you just that. I'm…completely overwhelmed. There's so much that must be done, and most of it must be done soon, and I…I…"

Starscream still had his arms wrapped loosely around Swoop's waist. She hadn't seemed inclined to step away from him, and he hadn't felt any particularly urgent need to push her away, either. She was comfortable to him now, familiar. And suddenly, she was shaking. Immediately, protectively, Starscream tightened his arms around her, and she, not offering even a sliver of resistance, simply melted against him, gratefully accepting the comfort that he was offering to her.

"It's all right, Swoop," Starscream murmured soothingly to her after a moment, after her shaking had lessened somewhat. "We'll get there. One step at a time."

"We?" Swoop echoed in a small and hopeful voice, not daring to look up at him.

"We," Starscream confirmed quietly, nodding solemnly even though Swoop wasn't looking at him.

And the surprising thing, to him, was that he meant it.

* * *

_**And finally:**__ All good things must come to an end. And then begin again. Or something like that, anyway._


	23. 21: Endings and Beginnings

_**21: Endings and Beginnings**_

"So!" Swoop said, approaching Starscream a week later. "I guess I'll be seeing you in about…what, three or four weeks or so?"

They were outside of Autobot Headquarters, and it was a lovely, crisp February morning, an hour or so after sunrise. Starscream paused in what he was doing, checking and then re-packing one last crate of supplies, and looked up at Swoop. Pale desert-morning sunlight glinted in tiny scintillas off of his highly-polished silver bits.

"Yes, I suppose so," he replied, his expression a bit surprised as he added, "You know, I'd almost forgotten about that."

"I'm flattered," Swoop answered dryly, her mouth twisting into a smirk, and it was only then that Starscream realized what his words must have sounded like to her.

"I didn't mean—" he started to respond, uncharacteristically flustered and rising swiftly from his crouch.

"I know," Swoop interrupted quietly, smiling serenely at him.

Starscream nodded, and then he said, "Just do me one little, _tiny_ favor, my queen?"

"Of course," Swoop immediately answered.

"Not the rain forest again. Someplace dry, not filthy, and not crawling with…_things_…would be nice."

Unexpectedly, Swoop giggled, and it was endearingly childish. And then she meaningfully laid a hand over the left side of her upper abdomen.

"Actually, by then, I don't know that I'll want to be flying anywhere. So it just might have to be right there," she said, indicating with a slight backwards incline of her head the volcano that reared up behind her. "It's not exciting or exotic, but the climate control works every now and then. There's very little vermin unless you count Grimlock's various orphans, Bluestreak's cats, and all the humans underfoot. And I _do_ have a nice, comfortable berth."

Starscream thought about that for a moment.

"I can handle that," he decided. "If _they_ can," he added, gesturing with his chin at a few of the Autobots who were milling nearby.

"Oh, I'll make 'em behave," Swoop assured him, her eyes glinting at him.

"I have every confidence that you will," Starscream answered, and Swoop heard and appreciated the meaning behind his words before he added whimsically, "So! I'll bring the candles, then. And the flowers."

Swoop snickered.

"I suppose that makes me responsible for the selection of gooey love songs." After a moment's mock-serious thought, she shrugged and added, "Oh well. I'm sure Jazz would be willing to offer advice on that."

"And don't forget the energon," Starscream reminded her. "I'm going to be looking forward to that because ours is absolutely _terrible_!"

Swoop laughed. And then, not caring who might see, she stepped toward him, wrapped her arms around him, and held him tightly, silently. Starscream, surprised at first because of the very public venue, eventually settled his arms comfortably around her waist.

"You take care of yourself," Swoop advised him quietly but vehemently a moment later.

"Oh, don't worry," Starscream assured her. "I always look out for number one."

"And you keep an eye on Ratchet," Swoop further admonished him, still not quite believing that Ratchet had actually _volunteered_ to go. Of course, he had also promised her – or perhaps it was a threat – that he'd be calling her every evening to make sure that she, her little one, and the medbay that he was leaving in her care for the duration were all surviving his absence.

"_Believe_ me," Starscream was answering fervently, "your warning about irreparable damage to certain of my more well-liked systems is _more_ than enough to induce me to watch over Ratchet like a hawk."

Swoop snickered at that. Then:

"Don't let Slag do anything stupid," she warned. "Because he will if you give him even an eighth of a chance, and I don't want him maiming or killing anyone. I already threatened him about it, but he'll likely need…reminding."

"Sure," Starscream answered, shrugging flippantly. "He's _only_ about half-again as big as me, but I'll…sit on him or something."

Swoop chortled at the image that suddenly sprang to life in her mind, and then she buried her face in Starscream's chest for a moment before once again raising her gaze to his.

"And if you need anything, anything at _all_…" she murmured.

"I'll yell," Starscream assured her. "Loudly. _Trust_ me."

And Swoop smiled up at him and said, suddenly very serious, "I do. Primus help me, but I do."

Starscream smiled back at her and then, also not caring who might see, he pulled her still closer into him and then bent down to kiss her. It was a tender kiss, full of feeling, full of unspoken and possibly frightening meaning, and it lasted for a long time. And then he let her go and determinedly stepped away from her. Swoop stared up at him in the aftermath, unable to move for a distressingly long moment, thoroughly dazed.

"Three weeks," Starscream said to her quietly but firmly, the words nothing less than a promise. "From today."

"I look forward to it," Swoop replied weakly, once she located her voice again and remembered what she was supposed to do with it.

"Me, too," Starscream answered simply and with an odd little smile.

And then, without further ado, he turned away from her, toward the party of mostly-warriors, all Autobots except for Starscream, who were gathering to head off into the lion's den that was Decepticon Headquarters at the moment, their mission an attempt to reunite the warrior caste.

"All right, everyone," he called out to them with more confidence than he felt. "Let's do this thing."

And Swoop watched, rooted to the exact spot where she'd stood when Starscream had walked away from her. She watched the group efficiently (because Prowl was overseeing the operation, even though he wasn't leaving) and quickly (because Starscream was impatient) gather up the supplies they'd collected and then load them into the cargo hold of a small auxiliary shuttle. Those who weren't fliers then boarded the shuttle, Ratchet offering Swoop a final little wave as he did so, which she returned with a sad little smile.

And then, suddenly, they were gone.

And Swoop felt empty. Almost. She laid one hand over her child; it had already become an ingrained habit.

_Well then, little one_, she thought resolutely to him. _Like Starscream said, let's do this thing._

Squaring her shoulders, turning to the Autobots who had gathered behind her with Thundercracker standing off to the side, Swoop faced the first day of the rest of her life.

* * *

_And that be all she wrote. Sort of. Actually, I have…*counts*…five other short stories already written in this continuity, but not all of them "happen" right after (or before, actually) this one. But they'll appear eventually. So…be on the lookout, if you're at all interested._

_In the meantime, I want to thank anyone who made it all the way through this thing. I realize that AUs have limited appeal, by their very nature, that they're fun for the person who creates them, but not necessarily for anyone else. But I'm having fun with this, __**lots**__ of fun, and if I can manage to entertain anyone else along the way…Well, that's all good. So, as I said, if you made it all the way through this one – It became a lot longer than I ever imagined that it would! – I really do thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I hope that you'll also enjoy the other things that will happen along the way, if you choose to read more. _

_Because, as you might be able to tell…it's pretty epic. As epic as "Redemption" and the universe it birthed was supposed to be, but…well, my writing partner rather bailed, out of necessity, due to Real Life. So…yeah. See y'all later._


End file.
